


Revelation

by illwick



Series: Unwind [24]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anal Play, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Bottom!Sherlock, Breathplay, Dom!John, Edgeplay, Established Relationship, Forced Orgasm, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Japanese Rope Bondage, Kink Negotiation, Light Angst, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Domestic Violence, Porn With Plot, Prostate Massage, Rimming, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sex Toys, Spanking (Sort Of), sub!Sherlock, top!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 04:35:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwick/pseuds/illwick
Summary: A new negotiation puts John and Sherlock in the Christmas spirit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags: there's a (brief) reference to homophobic incidents which took place in the past, as well as discussion of the (BBC-canon compliant) domestic violence between the two of them. There's also a nuanced conversation about the differentiation between pain play and impact play.
> 
> There are also some references to plot points that were addressed in the installment "Advent," but it's not imperative to have read that to get the gist-- though it does provide more background to some of the issues from Sherlock's past that are raised here.

John strides through the doorway of 221B to the startling sound of Sherlock in the kitchen, whistling. The savoury scent of stewing vegetables hangs heavily in the air, and John rounds the corner to observe Sherlock, looking adorably disheveled with a soiled dishrag tossed casually over his shoulder, leaning over a pot to sample the contents. He looks… _happy._

John’s heart swells in his chest. It seems today was a good day.

It wasn’t that most days weren’t good. They were, in an objective sense; after years of trial and error and surmounting insurmountable obstacles, the two of them seemed to have finally hit their stride. Sherlock’s Dark Moods were few and far between, John’s PTSD had been mostly at bay, they’d found a rhythm with their work schedules that accommodated them both, and Rosie was becoming increasingly self-sufficient and communicative by the day. All things considered, the past few months had been smooth sailing.

But just because it was _good_ didn’t mean it was _easy._ John was still seeing his therapist once a week, and he and Sherlock were attending trauma counselling together to work on the lingering issues between them. And _work_ was the operative word there: While simply having an impartial third party to help mitigate their conversations had been enormously helpful, their counsellor also gave them loads of ‘homework’-- exercises in communication and collaboration to help them build trust and openness. While the ‘homework’ was rarely hard, it could be emotionally taxing, and sometimes John found himself abstractly wishing for a relationship that was _easy._

But he knows _easy_ is a lie. He’s no fool. He understands the nature of the world. He’s a grown man. He knows himself. He knows that for him, he could never be happy with _easy._

And he knows Sherlock struggles, too. Though his moods had been generally level (erring on the side of ‘good’) and he hadn’t had a Danger Night in months, John could tell that there were times Sherlock wishes he could revert back to their old ways, sinking into a sullen snit when there were no good cases, and dropping everything else the moment the game was on. As it stands, he now passes his spare time taking on freelance laboratory assignments and consulting for clients with fat checkbooks and dull cases. When a real case comes about (an Eight-Or-Higher), he diplomatically checks in with John to make sure Rosie is accounted for before rushing off to the scene. He requests John’s help (which requires finding care for Rosie and a fill-in at the surgery) only when absolutely necessary. He is, for the most part, shockingly _considerate_ of the parameters of the life they’ve built for themselves.

But that’s not to say they don’t miss the carefree recklessness of the old days. Sure, the lows were lower, but the highs…

The highs were surprisingly like _this,_ with Sherlock in an unnaturally chipper mood, whistling to himself as he practically waltzes about the kitchen, adding the final touches to what appears to be his famous ratatouille: John’s favourite meal.

“Why, hello, gorgeous.” John approaches him from behind, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing a soft kiss the the place just below Sherlock’s left ear that always makes him giggle and squirm.

Tonight is no exception, and as soon as Sherlock collects himself, he turns and kisses John full on the lips, gentle and deep. A thrum of arousal makes its way up John’s spine, and he hums contentedly.

All too soon, Sherlock pulls away and turns back to the stove. “Dinner’s almost ready. Wine’s on the table, if you’d like some.” John turns to find an open bottle and empty glass waiting for him. He fills the glass and pulls out a chair, sinking into it with a sigh.

“Long day?” Sherlock’s leaning over the pot, and John has trouble formulating a coherent thought, having become momentarily distracted by the sight of Sherlock’s magnificent arse straining against his trousers. 

He finally manages to pull himself together enough to respond. “Yeah, just… Harry being Harry, you know.” They’d met up after work to touch base on a few family things. Harry had diligently stuck to soda water and lime, but John strongly suspected that she was back off the wagon. He tries not to think about it.

“Mmm. Sorry to hear that.” Sherlock rights himself and puts the lid on the pot before turning to face John, who is apparently unable to hide the disappointment on his face at the change in view.

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you not done ogling the goods, yet?” Sherlock turns back around and wiggles his arse suggestively in John’s direction, smirking over his shoulder. John can’t help but burst out laughing, and Sherlock laughs too, the deep, rumbling, _sincere_ laugh that makes John feel warm and tingly all over. He leans forward and gives his arse a playful swat, and Sherlock issues a faux-scandalised yelp before twirling out of John’s grasp to open up the cupboard and pull out two bowls.

“I’ll serve... would you refill my wine?” John internally notes how _polite_ Sherlock is being (making requests instead of issuing demands) - another sign he’s in a good mood. John locates Sherlock’s near-empty glass and obliges as Sherlock ladles out the stew, then they both settle down at the kitchen table to tuck in. Some nights they eat in front of the telly, but tonight, John can tell, Sherlock wants to talk.

“So. Your day was good?”

Sherlock nods enthusiastically. “Quite. I had a bit of free time since my last job concluded yesterday, so I solved the _Tamum Shud_ case.”

“The… the what?”

“The _Tamum Shud_ case. It’s a cold case, from Australia circa 1948. It involved an encrypted message that no one had been able to decipher. I happen upon the details of the case a few years back, and made a mental note to circle back ‘round to it someday when I had the time. Today was that day.”

“And… you solved it?”

“Mmmhmm.” Sherlock takes a bite of stew, looking rather smug.

“You solved a 75 year old cold case because you happened to have a free afternoon?”

Sherlock shrugs. “It wasn’t hard. Imagine how much more I could accomplish if I didn’t have to bother with all the _tedium_ of adult responsibilities!”

“Well, you didn’t seem to mind those _adult responsibilities_ last night.” John gives him a pointed _Look,_ which Sherlock pointedly returns, and there’s a moment of quiet electricity between them as they both simultaneously recall the rather delightfully athletic round of sex they’d partaken in the night before. Rosie was going through a blissfully easy patch in her sleep training, and they’d been taking full advantage; they’d had intercourse twice already this week, which was far more than they usually had time for. It had been _most_ enjoyable.

John clears his throat and snaps himself out of it. “So?”

Sherlock blinks back at him. “So?”

“...Aren’t you going to tell me how you solved it?”

A wicked grin spreads across Sherlock’s face. He sets down his spoon, takes a sip of wine, and leans back in his chair. 

An hour later, John’s pouring the last of the bottle into his glass, struggling not to spill it as he shakes with uncontrollable laughter. “Wait wait wait. So you’re telling me that the Association of Former Intelligence Officers thought the code referred to an _aircraft?”_

Sherlock is giggling so hard there are tears forming at the edges of his eyes. His cheeks are rather pink with a combination of delight and wine, and he’s barely able to rasp out a response. “I _know!_ It’s completely daft, but they were _oh so serious_ about it when they made the announcement they had it cracked! I knew it was rubbish at the time, but without a more plausible proposal, I couldn’t say anything. Well, I maybe called them a ‘blundering mob of witless imbeciles’ on the Reddit thread, but that’s neither here nor there…”

John shakes his head and takes another drink, delighting in the pleasant buzz of wine and banter. “So have you made your findings public yet?”

Sherlock dabs at his eyes with a napkin, then heaves a heavy sigh. “Not yet. I was in the process of compiling my findings when I had to leave to pick Rosie up from daycare. I’ll wrap it up tomorrow and send it to the Australian authorities.”

“Mmm, either way. Well done, you.” He grins at Sherlock, and Sherlock grins back.

John pauses to glance at the clock. It’s a little before 10; usually if Rosie was going to wake up after being put to bed at 8, it would have happened by now. The absence of any noise on the baby monitor was an indication that she was probably out for the night.

Excellent.

He clears his throat. “So… though this may not have been a _proper_ case, do you still want to… um, celebrate?” 

Sherlock will know exactly what he means. After cases, they celebrate by _unwinding,_ their term for when John dominates Sherlock sexually. While they do _unwind_ on occasion outside of cases, post-case it’s practically a tradition. Though they were still taking things slow after putting a stop to the power exchanges altogether a few months back, all their recent sessions had been utterly fantastic, and John finds he’s craving something _intense_ tonight, an escalation of the previous vanilla encounters they’d been having all week.

Sherlock meets his eyes, but to John’s surprise, he doesn’t immediately acquiesce. Instead, he puts down his wine glass and shifts in his seat. 

“I… yes, I do, but… I want to negotiate something before we start.”

“Oh!” John’s a bit taken aback; their sessions since the hiatus had been pretty tame thus far, and he finds he’s rather hard-pressed to guess what Sherlock might need to talk about. “Um, yeah, of course. Should we… clean up, and then have a chat? I’ll put the kettle on.”

Sherlock smiles, warm and reassuring. “Sounds perfect.”

Twenty minutes later, they’re back in their chairs, each with a fresh cuppa in hand. John feels relaxed but still somehow apprehensive about the whole situation; he’s got no clue what’s on Sherlock’s mind, and he finds the sensation rather off-putting.

Sherlock swallows, then seems to steady himself. “So.”

John gives him an encouraging smile. “So.”

“I’ve… the… the other night. When, um, we had sex twice because Rosie was at Molly’s.”

John nods, still unclear on where this was all headed. Two weeks before, Rosie had stayed at Molly’s overnight, and he and Sherlock had indulged themselves by going two rounds in a single evening. It hadn’t been a power exchange, just two rounds of vanilla sex, and John doesn’t remember anything particularly remarkable about it. “Yes?”

“When… um, after the first time, you put my plug in, and we were… just, you know, passing the time…”

“...Yes?” John recalls having put Sherlock’s small anal plug in after their first round, to keep him open and prepped while they took the time to recover.

“When you… you got back into bed, you swatted my arse.”

Oh. Right. That.

John had felt horrible about it at the time. Hitting and pain play were absolute hard limits for the two of them, both inside and outside of _unwinding._ He would occasionally give Sherlock a playful pat on the backside (in sexual and non-sexual scenarios alike), but he always kept it light and gentle; nothing that could be construed as a strike.

But two weeks ago, after inserting Sherlock’s plug and clambering clumsily back into bed to cuddle up beside him, he’d given him a swat that had landed _considerably_ harder than intended. It was an honest mistake; his post-coital haze and the darkness of the bedroom had done a number on his depth perception, and he’d misjudged the distance entirely.

He’d apologised profusely, and Sherlock had brushed it off, and an hour later they were both raring to go once more.

But it seems it wasn’t quite that simple. John steels himself, and prepares to take responsibility for his actions.

“I… yes. Sherlock, I am so, so sorry that happened. You have to know, I didn’t intend for it to be that hard, and I just… I’m so sorry. Please tell me what I can do to regain your trust.”

He sets his jaw, and braces himself for whatever reprimand Sherlock is about to give him.

But instead, Sherlock just shakes his head. “No, John. I want you to do it again.”

John feels rather like one of those cartoonish record-scratch sound effects has gone off in his head. He’s fairly certain he’s misheard. “...I’m sorry?”

“I want you to do it again. I liked it when it happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards. I’ve wanked to the memory every day since.” (Sherlock still doesn’t quite grasp the boundaries of what qualifies as an ‘overshare,’ but John’s used to it; he’s gradually determined that during their negotiations, Sherlock’s lack of shame can actually be an asset.) “I want you to spank me.”

John shakes his head. This has caught him so off-guard he’s reeling, flailing, scrambling for solid ground. “Sherlock… No. No. I mean… Just, no. You… no. No.”

“But--”

“I said NO. You know hitting and pain play are hard limits for us. We laid out those rules the first time we ever had a negotiation. I stand by our decision. So this is a firm no.”

“John, it’s not _hitting--”_

“Like HELL it’s not hitting, Sherlock, Jesus!” John forces himself to take a deep breath and get back under control. He knows enough from reading the Power Exchange message boards he frequents that negotiations are meant to be open forums; he must not make Sherlock feel ashamed for asking for something. At the same time, he must hold a firm line. It’s a delicate balance, and one he prides himself on his ability to maintain.

Sherlock is scowling at him, and John does his best to backtrack. “Okay. Okay, let’s back this up. First and foremost, I want you to know I don’t judge you for liking it. Do you understand that?”

Sherlock gives him a reluctant nod.

“Okay. Good. There’s nothing wrong with being aroused by what happened, and it’s fine if you… you know, fantasise about that kind of thing. It’s perfectly healthy. That’s not the issue here.”

Sherlock remains mute.

John clears his throat and takes a deep breath before verbalising what he knows he needs to say next. “The issue here is that you and I have a history of violent altercations that were not safe or consensual. In the past, I have hit you out of anger, and that is completely unacceptable.”

Sherlock opens his mouth to protest, but John cuts him off.

“No. I know what you’re going to say: that every time it happened, I was angry, or I was grieving, or that the tension between us was bound to cause one of us to break. And while all that’s true, we both know damn well that this wasn’t something that happened between two hotheaded men. It was something that happened between two intimate partners. And despite the fact we weren’t sleeping together at the time, given the history of our physical relationship, it was completely unacceptable. I cannot and will not turn away from that.” 

He’d spent so many sessions with his therapist talking through his tangled web of emotions regarding the times he’d been violent towards Sherlock that saying it out loud feels surreally natural. 

Sherlock simply blinks back at him, unmoved. “I… appreciate that, John, I do. But this isn’t… I’m not asking you to hit me hard enough that it hurts. I don’t want you to hurt me. But when… when you swatted me the way you did, the plug, it shifted, and God, it felt… it felt really, really good, and I want… I want that. I want that.”

John pauses to consider this. Framed in this light, it certainly seemed that Sherlock wasn’t asking for _pain,_ he was asking for a very specific kind of stimulation. “So… what turned you on wasn’t the pain from the slap, but the stimulation from inside?”

Sherlock nods enthusiastically. “Precisely. The slap… I mean, if you’re calling it that, honestly, John, it was so minor that I didn’t even register what was happening to my arsecheek. Only my prostate.”

John hesitates. He’s not quite sure what to make of this particular scenario, and he finds it’s throwing him for a loop.

Hard limits were supposed to make things simple. He knows this from reading up on the etiquette of Power Exchanges, from conversations he’s seen on the D/S message boards he frequents online, and from his own personal experience with Sherlock during their sessions. Hard limits weren’t lines in the sand, prone to being scuffed out and re-drawn: they were immovable, unassailable walls that they mutually agreed never to attempt to traverse. They were the ultimate failsafe in maintaining the _safe_ and _sane_ elements of a _safe, sane, consensual_ D/S relationship.

Ruling out hitting or pain play altogether kept John confident when he was dominating Sherlock. He never had to worry about actually _hurting_ him-- the closest he ever got was _sexually overstimulating_ him, which Sherlock vocally adored and enthusiastically consented to. John never, ever wanted to cause Sherlock actual _pain._

Because the memories of the times he hurt Sherlock (fists to the face following Sherlock’s surprise return from the dead, beating him in front of Culverton Smith in the morgue) are his darkest, most shameful memories. Of all the terrible or morally questionable things John Watson has ever done in his life, physically assaulting the man he loves is the one that haunts him the most. It is the worst thing John has ever done.

Because he swore to himself he wouldn’t be like that. Back when he was younger, listening to his father reel and rage as his mother plead for reason, John swore to himself that he would _never_ be like his father. He would _never_ inflict fear or pain on those he loved. He would _never_ let his temper get the better of him.

And then not once, but twice, he did the very thing he most despised. In a fit of rage, he beat the person he loved most, subjected him to pain and humiliation, all to placate John’s wounded feelings. It was dark and petty and horrific, and John feels sick with mortification whenever he thinks about it.

So the idea of raising his hand to Sherlock during the times there were most intimate with one another… the thought is abhorrent.

But perhaps he’s thinking about it the wrong way. If Sherlock means what he’s saying (and he’s not been known to parse words during their negotiations), then it wasn’t a particular type of _pain_ he was after, it was a certain form of _stimulation._ If John could find a way to _stimulate_ Sherlock the way that he liked without mentally categorising it as _slapping_ him… perhaps there could be a middle ground?

No, no, that couldn’t work… because if John were to try it and went too hard and Sherlock tapped out… Christ, John’s not sure how he could bounce back from that. Recovering from Sherlock tapping out of a session was already an enormous emotional struggle as-is, even without a known pressure point at play.

Thanks to John’s fastidious devotion to negotiation, Sherlock has only ever tapped out during a session twice, in all the time they’ve spent _Unwinding._

The first time had been after John had double-penetrated him using his cock and a vibrating wand. John supposes it doesn’t even really count as a _tap-out,_ since Sherlock only stopped the proceedings after they’d both come; he was simply signalling that he needed the encounter to be finished so that they could move on to _aftercare._ He hadn’t actually taken issue with the double-penetration at all.

The second time had been a few months later, and in completely unrelated circumstances. They’d been celebrating the conclusion of a major case with a particularly prolonged session, and they were mid-way through their fifth round of intercourse of the night. It hadn’t even been particularly _rough_ intercourse; John was simply taking Sherlock from behind, spilling a filthy litany from his lips as in front of him, Sherlock moaned and begged, clutching the headboard as John thrust vigorously into his loosened hole. Everything was going according to plan.

 

Then, without warning, Sherlock’s voice had rung out, firm and clear: “Stop. John, stop.”

John had felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown over him; he stopped immediately, pulling as daintily out of Sherlock as possible, backing away, giving Sherlock space.

“Okay. Okay. Sherlock, you okay?” John himself was shaking, viscerally jarred back to reality.

Sherlock had remained facing the headboard, his head sagging between his arms. John couldn’t see any visible sign of injury, but he knew something must be _terribly_ wrong if Sherlock had just pulled the emergency brake.

“I’m fine, physically. I’m physically fine.” Sherlock’s tone was tight and cool. He slowly raised himself up and turned to sit down, letting his legs swing off the side of the bed, as if making to stand up. John felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest.

”Okay, good, good, I’m glad. But then… what’s wrong?”

Sherlock turned to look at John, gazing placidly over his shoulder. His face was blank, like a mask, devoid of any glimmer of intimacy. John shuddered. “That word you used. Don’t use it with me ever again.”

John blinked at him. He’d been running his mouth without much thought, and he couldn’t recall having said anything particularly inflammatory; he knew that Sherlock didn’t like being called dirty names, so John always diligently avoided the typical _slut, slag,_ or _whore,_ so he was fairly positive he hadn’t let any of those slip.

“I… I’m sorry, Sherlock, could you clarify? Which word, exactly?” He felt suffocatingly earnest, eager to make it alright, to somehow rectify whatever had just gone wrong between them.

“Don’t ever call me ‘dirty’. I don’t like that word.”

 _Oh, shit._ John abruptly recalled waxing poetic about the state of Sherlock’s hole, which (considering it was their fifth round) had been _delightfully_ messy and full of come. He was pretty sure he’d called Sherlock _messy_ or even _filthy_ plenty of times in the past and Sherlock had never objected, but tonight it appears he’d let himself taking it one step further, and gone on a rather lengthy diatribe about how _dirty_ and _used_ Sherlock felt. _Shit._

“God, okay. Okay. Sherlock, I am so, so sorry. I got carried away. I didn’t mean to upset you and… fuck, I’m so sorry…” 

“It’s alright. You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.” With that, Sherlock rose to his feet and made his way towards the bathroom without a backwards glance.

John scrambled to gather his thoughts. “Where… where are you going?”

Sherlock didn’t even pause, disappearing into the bathroom and closing the door. When he did respond, his words were nearly drowned out by the sounds of the pipes rattling to life. “I need to take a shower.”

Fuck, _fuck._ John had scrambled out of bed to tap on the door. “Can… can I join you? Want me to help you wash off, love?” Their post-session shower was always an opportunity for John to give Sherlock some doting aftercare, and he felt utterly compelled to follow through, regardless of Sherlock’s current state.

“No. I need a minute, John, just leave me be. Get in bed. We can talk when I come out.”

“Sherlock, I--”

“John _please._ Just… leave me. I need some time.”

John had crawled back to bed feeling like his stomach was filled with molten lead. For eight intolerable minutes, he lay watching the clock as the sound of Sherlock scrubbing off in the shower permeated the thin wall of the bedroom. Finally, the taps shut off, and moments later, Sherlock emerged, rubbing a towel through his hair. He finished drying himself off and flung the towel haphazardly in the direction of the hamper before flicking off the light and climbing into bed.

The silence between them was deafening.

Finally, John spoke. “Can… can I hold your hand?” He barely dared breathe as he waited for a response.

Then, from the darkness, “Yes.” 

Sherlock’s hand found his.

The tightness in John’s chest dissipated a bit.

He waited a while before he spoke again, giving both Sherlock and himself a chance to settle. “Sherlock, I… I need you to know how sorry I am. I didn’t mean--”

“John, stop.” Sherlock’s voice was low, and he sounded achingly weary. “It wasn’t your fault. You know I don’t like to be called names, I made that clear to you before. But you couldn’t have known that word was off-limits. Hell, I didn’t know that word was off-limits until I heard you saying it. You can’t blame yourself for this. I’m not blaming myself. We didn’t know. But now we do. We just have to… learn from it and move on.”

John swallowed wetly; Sherlock’s assessment of the situation was startlingly clear-headed, considering that a mere half hour ago they’d both been out of their minds on the giddy high of a full-blown session. His response had been eloquent and fair. John found he couldn’t argue.

But he also couldn’t quite let it go. “Okay. We can do that. But… will you… tell me why?”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment. “Why?”

“Because I… I feel like I need to understand.”

“No, I mean… why do you need me to tell you? You already know. Despite what I may say about your deductive capabilities, I’m fairly certain you’ve at least been able to put this puzzle together.”

John started to protest, but the words died in his throat. Because… Sherlock was right. John _did_ already know. But he’d never let himself think to hard about it, because if he did, he’s fairly certain he couldn’t handle the heartbreak. 

Finally, he felt capable of responding. “I… maybe I do.”

“So tell me.”

“Tell… you?”

“Yes. Tell me why I don’t like to be called those things. Let’s test your deductions, for once.”

John took a deep breath. “I know… that before we were together, you were with men who treated you badly. Who were closeted, or cruel, or some combination of the two. I imagine… I imagine they weren’t always polite to you.”

“Go on.”

“And… um, and I imagine they… they sometimes called you those things, to… to make themselves feel better, to assert their masculinity, to maintain the feeling of control.”

“Very good, John. What else?”

“I… um, that’s… that’s all. That’s it.” John found them suddenly steering into treacherous waters, broaching a topic that before had remained unspoken between them.

Sherlock’s response was curt. “No, that’s not all. And you know that’s not all.”

“I… I know.”

“So say it.”

John shook his head and held Sherlock’s hand tighter. “I don’t need to. We… we don’t need to talk about this, Sherlock.”

In the darkness, Sherlock shifted, and then at last, he spoke. “I think it’s time we do.”

John pursed his lips, and steeled his resolve. Finally, he gathered the strength to speak.

“I know that at some point you exchanged sexual favours for drugs, or for the money to buy drugs. I know that most of your clients were men in positions of power within the government. And I know that they treated you terribly, and took advantage of your desperate state. I know that experience led to you declaring your body was Just Transport.”

The words seemed to echo in the silence of the bedroom. At long last, Sherlock’s voice rumbled from the darkness.

“Very good, John. Very good.” For a moment John thought that was all Sherlock was going to say. But then Sherlock took a deep breath, and continued.

“It was shocking, how universal their desires were. To hold me down, berate me, make me feel dirty and used and subhuman. And most of the time, they succeeded. They called me _whore, slut, slag, filthy, dirty, faggot, queer, EVERYTHING_ they feared about themselves, they projected onto me. And I took it, I took it all, because what did it matter? They were right about me, I WAS all of those things, and worse--”

“Sherlock, stop it, you are NOT those things. You were an addict battling a disease that’s destroyed countless other lives, you were sick and you were desperate--”

“John, stop talking and listen to me.” Sherlock’s tone was sharp, and John felt his tongue tie up mid-sentence. “Don’t you think I know that? Let me make this clear: I do not need your rationalisations. I do not need your excuses. I do not need your pity. And I sure as HELL do not need your forgiveness. My past is _mine,_ and the things that happened to me, they are mine to deal with as I please. They are _not_ yours to have, and they are _not_ ours to share.”

John felt appropriately abashed. “Of… of course. Of course, Sherlock. I… I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

Sherlock continued to hold John’s hand in his own, an anchor in a swirling sea of emotions. “The past is past, and I’ve moved on. But when we’re… when we’re talking dirty, and you say something degrading, I know that to you it’s only pretend. But to me, John, for a while, it was _real,_ it was all too real, and I cannot separate myself from that. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand, Sherlock. And it will never, EVER happen again.”

And it hadn’t.

They’d lain together in the darkness for an eternity. And then Sherlock shifted, and crawled into John’s open arms. And John had held him close as tears ran down his own cheeks, murmuring into Sherlock’s unruly mop of hair over and over again the words John _knows_ he never got to hear in the life before he and John met: _I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you._

They’d recovered from that night. It had been a slow recovery, a push and pull on both sides to reach their perfect equilibrium once more. They bounced back, but for a while, John had remained paranoid during their sessions, externally exuding calm confidence while internally panicking that he might say something or do something that would cause Sherlock to relive past pain.

And while they’d eventually moved past it, the idea of another session being terminated at Sherlock’s request still scared the hell out of John. Because a terminated session meant that John had _failed:_ At being a Dom, at being a good partner, at taking care of Sherlock when he was being his most vulnerable, stripping away his defenses and laying himself bare at John’s mercy. If Sherlock tapped out during a session, it meant that John had fucked it all up.

And he couldn’t risk that.

Not again.

“...John?”

John startles back to attention to find Sherlock starting at him from across the table, concern etched into the lines of his face; John realises he must have just spaced out for a thoroughly unacceptable amount of time.

He attempts to snap himself out of it, to shake off the heavy weight of that memory. He knows he shouldn’t dwell on it; all of the message boards had been adamant that, once the root cause of a tap-out was identified, both partners must focus on moving _forward_ from that point; it would do neither of them any good to dwell on the past.

He takes a deep breath, and attempts to formulate a coherent thought. “I… Sherlock, this is…” He closes his eyes and swallows hard; somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain, he can hear the sound of his father shattering the china and shouting threats as John cowered in the wardrobe, too young and scared to make sense of it all.

But no, _no,_ it wasn’t like that here. This wasn’t a threat or a punishment. Sherlock was asking for something he _wanted;_ it was simply up to John to decide if it was something he was able to give.

Before he’s able to say another word, Sherlock speaks up, his voice suddenly soft. “John, we don’t have to. I know this is… well, it’s not exactly a hard limit, it’s _hard limit-adjacent,_ but I just wanted… I wanted to know if you’d be open to the idea. If you’re not, we can step away from this. We can step away whenever you want to.”

Something about Sherlock’s tone of measured calm is inexplicably soothing. Sherlock wouldn’t be upset if John said no. He would understand. That was all that mattered.

John manages to open his eyes. Without saying a word, he places his hand palm-up on the table. Sherlock extends his own, and entwines their fingers as their eyes lock. John steadies himself.

“We can try it, but I don’t want it to be part of a session, our first time.”

Sherlock looks a bit lost.

“I want it… I want it to be something we do lovingly. Sensually. I don’t want to be… to be punishing you or dominating you while it’s happening. I want to be making love to you.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes, and John can see him weighing his options: If Sherlock was being honest, if this truly _wasn’t_ about pain and was simply about the pleasure of a particular type of impact, it should make no difference whether they engaged in it in the setting of a session, or in a round of otherwise-vanilla intercourse.

“Alright.”

John raises his eyebrows. “Alright?”

Sherlock’s response is bone dry. “Alright. Take me to bed, make love to me, then put an anal plug in me and spank me until I come. I’m honestly very curious to see how the tone of this plays out.”

John can’t help but bark out a laugh, and Sherlock starts laughing too, and for a moment, they lose themselves in the blissful ridiculousness of the situation, doubling over in helpless giggles in the harsh fluorescent light of their kitchen.

Sometimes John can’t believe how he got this lucky. That somehow, despite all the trauma and the chaos and the fucked-up bullshit he’s been enduring every day of his life for as long as he can remember, he was somehow allowed to have _this:_ a partner who understood him, who accepted him unconditionally, who would march beside him through the gates of hell and then lead him to the epitome of nirvana. Someone to whom he could reveal his deepest, darkest, kinkiest desires without fear of judgement or shame, and someone whom he could trust to do the same with him. Being with Sherlock like this makes John feel at peace.

Eventually, they’re both able to get ahold of themselves. John rises, Sherlock’s hand still clasped in his own, and gestures towards the hallway to the bedroom. “Come on, you. Want to make you feel good, love.”

Wordlessly, Sherlock stands up, and allows John to lead the way.

And ever true to his word, John makes love to Sherlock, with all the excessive foreplay and murmured declarations of adoration and fidelity that entails. He reverently kisses every inch of Sherlock’s pale skin, tonguing along each artery and vein pulsing beneath the surface, thrumming hot with life, intoxicating beneath his lips. He sucks Sherlock’s hardened cock until he’s whimpering with bliss, then rolls him over and rims him until he’s moaning and begging for more. By the time John’s got him flat on his back and is pressed into him with three lube-slick fingers, Sherlock’s so far gone he’s lost the ability to do anything besides grip himself resolutely behind the knees, holding himself open to grant John access, his forehead dewey with sweat and lips swollen with bitten-back cries. He occasionally manages to blink open his eyes to peer up at John, his gaze infused with heat and desire, before slamming them shut and surrendering to the sensations. John has him exactly where he wants him.

Then John slicks himself up and penetrates him, so slowly that Sherlock all but growls in frustration. But John takes his time, sealing Sherlock’s lips in a searing kiss, plundering his mouth with languid swirls of his tongue, capturing each breathy sigh with an inhalation of his own. Once he bottoms out, for a while he just rocks gently into Sherlock’s trembling body, acclimating him to the intrusion, making him _feel_ every thick inch John’s pushed up inside of him. Sherlock whines and whimpers as his channel clenches and unclenches in a mesmerising cadence, then he rakes his nails down John’s back, eliciting a shiver that culminates in a commanding throb from deep inside John’s cock. Sherlock’s hands settle resolutely on John’s arse and _squeeze,_ guiding him deeper inside, and John pulls his lips away just enough that he can gaze into Sherlock’s eyes as he finally begins to properly thrust. 

Sherlock’s lips part and his eyes widen and he grunts at the sensation. Then the corners of his lips turn up into a mischievous smile: the cat who finally got the cream. John grins salaciously back down at him, and Sherlock lets out a little laugh, and John laughs too, but then he hits an angle that makes them both gasp and groan and before he knows it, he’s pummeling into Sherlock with all the gusto he can muster while beneath him, Sherlock arches and swears and spreads his legs as far as he can to let John sink ever deeper inside.

John presses his forehead against Sherlock’s, their heated breath intermingling in the mere milimetres between them. “Mmm! Mmm, God, Sherlock, I’m close, I’m close…” John’s voice sounds tight and gruff even in his own ears.

Sherlock tips his head back, letting his eyes flutter shut, baring the gorgeous porcelain column of his neck for John. “Yes, John, please, come in me…”

“God, I love you so much, Sherlock, fuck, I love you, I love you, love you-- _ohhhhhh!”_ And then everything goes white and quiet and peaceful as John surrenders to the rushing in his ears and the throbbing in his cock.

He comes to with his face burrowed in the crook of Sherlock’s neck. He’s breathing heavily and he distantly acknowledges that his body is still pushing earnestly into the tight heat enveloping him, eager to expend every last ounce of pleasure as deep inside Sherlock’s willing body as possible.

“Mmm, mmm, John, love you, love you, love you…” Sherlock’s awestruck words echoing John’s own saccharine sentiment sends a new wave of arousal galloping down his spine, and John gasps as another wave of ecstasy overtakes him. He shudders and moans through a gripping aftershock, pumping even more come than he thought possible into the man trembling beneath him.

Finally, they both still.

For a while, neither moves. John lets himself sink into the sensation of pure post-coital contentment, still seated snugly inside Sherlock as he holds his body tight against his own, delighting in the perfection of their union.

But he can’t ignore the demanding hardness of Sherlock’s length pressing against his own abdomen. Sherlock isn’t a brat about it, for once; he doesn’t thrust up against John’s jelly-limbed form or make whiney, impatient noises while shifting restlessly underneath him. He lets John bask in the afterglow, revel in satisfaction, until he’s ready to be finished.

At long last, John props himself up on his elbows to find Sherlock beaming up at him. “Oh, hello, there, love.”

Sherlock giggles. “Hi, John.” He wriggles a bit, and John winces at the sensation around his rapidly-softening prick.

“You look suspiciously happy, my dear. What’s gotten into you?”

“Oh my GOD, John, you’re ridiculous. Such a pervert.” Sherlock rolls his eyes and pretends to be affronted by John’s horrid innuendo, but John can see he’s biting back a smile. But then Sherlock shifts again and tilts his pelvis a bit, and John is forced to acknowledge he can’t maintain their coupling much longer.

“Mmm, love, can you grab yourself behind your knees for me? Tip yourself up, keep you nice and full of me while I find your plug, yeah?”

Sherlock complies so quickly John laughs, then gently withdraws his prick from Sherlock’s fluttering hole with a wince. “Mmph, okay. Can I check you over now?”

“Mmmhmm.” Sherlock’s tone is light and enthusiastic; John’s noticed he’s _much_ more keen on the post-penetration exams John insists upon when he’s yet to come himself.

“Good.” John brings two fingers to his mouth and wets them, then runs them lightly around Sherlock’s rim before plunging them inside, twisting and scissoring them a bit to check for tearing.

“Mmmmmmyesssss, nngh, fuck!” Sherlock curls in on himself a bit but resolutely maintains his grip behind his knees. “Christ, John, you’d better get on with things or I’m going to lose it before we’ve even… you know…”

John issues a non-committal hum before withdrawing his fingers and inspecting them for any sign of blood. Finding none, he turns to the nightstand and rummages through it, looking for Sherlock’s anal plugs.

A decade ago, if anyone had told John Watson that one night ten years in the future, he’d be in the bedroom of a homey little flat in downtown London deciding which anal plug to insert into his male partner to keep his come inside of him while he spanked him, he’d probably have either labeled them patently insane, or punched them out cold. But as it stands, John simply stares down at the two options clutched in his hands, contemplating the decision as casually as if he were being asked to decide between vanilla and chocolate.

In his left hand, he holds Sherlock’s vibrating anal plug. It’s Sherlock’s favourite toy they own: that much Sherlock has told him. It’s long enough to stimulate his prostate, wide enough to stretch Sherlock a bit past the point of comfort (and ready him for rough use when they were having a session), and of course, the vibrations were more than a pleasant bonus.

But in his right hand, he holds Sherlock’s standard anal plug. It holds a special place in John’s heart: It was the first toy Sherlock ever bought for the two of them as a couple, and it was simply, utterly perfect from the moment he’d presented John with it. It was small and unassuming, not deep enough to stimulate his prostate and not wide enough to really stretch him; Sherlock had calmly explained that it was simply intended to keep John’s come inside Sherlock between rounds. It was modest and frankly rather demure in the scheme of things, but Sherlock had purchased it back when they’d first given _Unwinding_ a name and started setting forth some ground rules; it was clear he didn’t want to scare or overwhelm either of them. If anything, it makes John feel a bit nostalgic for those days; they had been innocent times, indeed, considering the stuff the two of them got up to now.

“The small one, please.”

John looks over at Sherlock, who’s watching him with a level gaze. His cheeks are flushed and his hair is wild and true, he’s on his back holding his legs open to expose his leaking hole, but he he looks so bloody _calm_ and _collected,_ John doesn’t even hesitate before tossing the large plug back in the drawer and grabbing the tube of lube from where he’d discarded it beside the pillow.

“You think this will be… um, deep enough?” John struggles to keep his voice level as he slicks up the little plug.

Sherlock shrugs (or at least, does the closest impression of a shrug he can while still lying flat on his back with his hands behind his bent knees). “That’s what I was wearing the time it happened by accident. Besides, the large one can get me off just with the vibrations alone, so adding impact to that seems rather beside the point.”

John hums a bit in affirmation, then guides the plug inside as delicately as possible. Sherlock issues a contented sigh as it settles into place, and he and John share a shy smile. John leans in and kisses him, reminding himself to stay _grounded_ and _present_ in the moment. He didn’t need to panic, they could take this one step at a time.

Finally, he pulls away. “Alright. How do you… um, how should we… uh, do this?”

Sherlock sits up, not even wincing at the sensation of the plug shifting inside of him. He looks completely, utterly calm, and John feels somehow inexplicably soothed by this fact.

“Well, before when you did it, I was face-down on the bed. I think it helped that there was some pressure on my cock at the same time as my prostate, it was a pleasant dual sensation that I’d like to replicate.”

John swallows. “Oh… okay? So do you just want to… um, lie down?”

Sherlock cocks his head. “I was thinking it might be nice to lie across your lap. I could thrust against your thigh that way; your thighs always feel nicer than the bedsheets.”

John gives him a lopsided smile. “Why, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Sherlock stares at him in apparent anticipation.

“Oh! Right, then, I’ll just…” John swings his legs off the edge of the bed, and before he can pause to contemplate just what the hell he’s getting himself into, Sherlock is clambering on top of him. Then he lowers himself down perpendicularly, the persistent heat of his cock coming into contact with the top of John’s left thigh. They both gasp at the sensation.

“Mmm. That’s… that’s good…” Sherlock issues an experimental little maneuver against John’s thigh; it’s so minor it could hardly be categorised as a _thrust._ Sherlock sucks in a breath, and repeats the action.

John clears his throat. “What… what if you moved up a bit, yeah, like that, so your cock--”

“Mmm!” Sherlock scoots forward an inch or two, and his cock nestles its way between John’s thighs. Without thinking, John squeezes his legs together, applying more pressure, and Sherlock rolls his hips enthusiastically. “Oh, fuck, _yes,_ that’s lovely, _mmm…”_ John stays stock still while Sherlock indulges in a bit of intercrural self-pleasure, taking the opportunity to observe the way the cheeks of his magnificent arse clench with each undulation.

Finally, Sherlock stills, and John can feel his body relax across his. “Feeling good?”

“Mmmhmm.” Sherlock’s voice has taken on the rumbling, fucked-out tone he gets when he’s incredibly aroused, and John shivers in response. All of a sudden, the details of what they’re doing seem insignificant; he just wants to make Sherlock feel _good._

“I think… um, I think first, maybe we should figure out the angle I should be aiming for? To make sure I’m… putting pressure in the right place?”

“Yes, please, John.” Sherlock folds his forearms beneath his head and rests serenely upon them, as though lying across John’s lap anticipating a spanking is something he enjoys as casually as teatime.

“Right. I’ll just…” John reaches forward with his left hand and takes Sherlock’s left buttock squarely into his palm. Then he squeezes, while at the same time pressing in and down.

Sherlock shifts a bit, but he doesn’t make any indication of pleasure. John readjusts his grip, then presses down again, switching up the angle a bit. Still no reaction.

John furrows his brow. He’s not quite sure what had felt so good that time he’d swatted Sherlock by mistake; hell, it had been pitch black in the bedroom at the time, and he wasn’t even intending to stimulate him, so he’s rather at a loss for how to replicate the event.

But then he makes himself stop and _think._ He was a doctor, after all; he knew where the prostate was located (and he was _intimately_ familiar with the precise location of Sherlock’s), so all he needed to do was find the angle that would drive the plug in that direction.

Resolutely, he amends his approach, then pushes down _hard._

 _“NNNGHAAAA!”_ Sherlock nearly arches off the bed, his hands flying out to twist in the bedsheets, head thrown back in apparent ecstasy. _“There! Theretherethere ohmygod there!”_

John can’t help but laugh at Sherlock’s desperate state, and Sherlock throws a dirty look at him over his right shoulder. “What the hell are you waiting for? Keep going, that’s it!” His eyes are wide and frantic with lust.

But John can’t dismiss the lump in his throat. He looks Sherlock squarely in the eye. “Sherlock, I’m… nervous. This… this is a lot. This scares me.” It’s not easy to say those words, but he and Sherlock have been working so hard in their counselling sessions to learn to properly identify and express their emotions, and right now, that’s the most honest thing John can bring himself to say.

Sherlock begins to pull himself up onto his knees, withdrawing his cock from between John’s thighs. “Alright. Alright, let’s stop. We don’t have to--”

John shakes his head and presses down on Sherlock’s lower back, guiding his cock back between his legs with a feeling of purposeful resolve. “I’m not tapping out, here. I just-- I’m really nervous, and we’re going to need to take this slowly, okay?”

The look of concern doesn’t evaporate entirely, but Sherlock does issue a tentative nod before turning and repositioning himself to face forward, lowering his head back to the mattress. Then without ceremony, Sherlock reaches back and takes John’s free hand in his own and gives it a squeeze. “It’s alright, John. I’m with you. We’re in this together.”

John squeezes back. “Okay. Okay.”

With that, he raises his hand and delivers a light swat to Sherlock’s exposed cheek.

“Nnnngh…” John’s startled to note that instantaneously, gooseflesh ripples across Sherlock’s back. The strike had hardly been hard enough to shift the plug at all, but Sherlock’s positive response to it was obvious.

“Good?”

“Yes. Harder, please.”

John raises his hand, and lets it fall once more, this time hard enough to make the pert flesh of Sherlock’s cheek jiggle enticingly with the impact.

“OH, shit, GOD, John… fuck, fuck, yes!” John can feel Sherlock’s prick pulse eagerly between his thighs. “God, right there, harder, please.”

John takes a deep breath, and issues another blow.

“AAUUUGH! Oh, fuck, YES! YES! John, Jesus Christ, I’m… YES!” Sherlock squirms helplessly in his lap, squeezing John’s hand in his own for all he’s worth. John can feel Sherlock’s turgid cock release a dribble of precome against John’s inner thigh.

“Sherlock, was that hard enough? That’s… um, I think that’s about as far as I can… as far as I can go.” The blow had been firm but direct. John had kept his hand cupped, mirroring the swell of Sherlock’s cheek, allowing him to apply a little additional pressure after the initial impact, driving the plug deeper inside. It had felt like a _swat,_ not like a _hit,_ and John doesn’t want to push things any further into an area that may make him feel unsafe.

Sherlock nods frantically. “Yes, yes, John, that was perfect, I just… again, please, _fuck,_ again…”

John lifts his hand, and delivers another impact.

“Gaaaaaaaaah! OH! OH! OH!” Sherlock grinds enthusiastically between Sherlock’s thighs, and John can feel how slippery his cock is becoming with all the precome he’s begun to leak. “Nnnnngh, ohhhhh….” He tips his head back and lets out a luxurious moan.

John tries it twice more, pausing in between to observe the results. Sherlock seems out of his mind with pleasure, moaning and writhing like a wanton whore in John’s lap, one hand violently gripping the bedsheets while the other clings to John’s for dear life.

At the next pause, Sherlock manages to collect himself enough to string together a coherent sentence. When he speaks, his voice sounds wet and desperate. “John, can you… um, do it faster? More… more in a row? I’m so close, I’m so fucking close, just a little more, please…”

John bites his lip and considers it. While things are going well enough so far, it’s reassuring him that he can analyse Sherlock’s positive response to each blow, and he’s hesitant to lose that consistent affirmation.

“I… I can, yes, but I need you to do something for me, too.”

“Anything, John.”

“I need your consent. The whole time. Loud, verbal consent to what I’m doing. I need to know you’re enjoying this. I need to know that I’m pleasuring you, and that this doesn’t hurt.”

Sherlock nods again. “Shouldn’t… shouldn’t be a problem. Christ, John, this feels _so good…”_

“Alright. Alright, then. Ready?”

“Yes, please.”

And with that, John rains down a series of rough, sharp smacks onto Sherlock’s voluminous backside.

“YES! YES! John, YES! That’s it! Oh! Oh! Yes, PLEASE! There! There! Ahhhhhhhh YES!” Sherlock is wriggling desperately against John’s lap, half thrusting into the tight heat between his thighs and half raising his arse in search of further contact. John willingly obliges, swinging his palm with measured, precise efficiency, guiding Sherlock towards his climax.

“FUCK, JOHN! Oh, God! _Ohgodohgodohgodohgod_ YES! YES! YES!” There’s a familiar, deafening thrum in John’s ears as he watches Sherlock fall apart, and he realises with a start that it’s his own heartbeat. He was becoming aroused himself. _He was getting off on this, too._ He grips Sherlock’s hand in his, a lifeline to every ounce of trust they share between them, and he focuses on that sensation as he issues more blows to Sherlock’s rapidly-pinkening rear end.

“Ah--ah--ah--ah--ah!” Sherlock’s movements suddenly grow jerky and uncoordinated, and John can see the muscles in his body tensing in preparation for release. He’s still thrusting frantically between John’s clenched thighs, but the tendons and ligaments in his back and neck begin to stretch and strain as the sensations overpower him. “J-J-J-John! John! FUCK, YES, JOHN! FUCK! OH! OH! AUUUUUGHHH--”

And then Sherlock goes completely silent, and his body bows up in the familiar shape John knows it makes when Sherlock reaches climax. John lands two more blows in quick succession before he feels the wet warmth of Sherlock’s come spreading between his thighs, and he can feel Sherlock’s prick twitching as it spurts, his pelvis issuing tiny, feeble thrusts.

On a whim, John reaches down, parts Sherlock’s arsecheeks, and presses directly against the plug, _hard._

Sherlock’s head collapses back down onto the mattress. _“Ohhhhhhhhh…”_ John watches as a shiver works its way down the length of his spine, and he can feel another emission from Sherlock’s cock bloom hot between his legs.

“Oh, _yes,_ fuck, Sherlock, _yes…”_ John grips the base of the plug and pulls it out just past Sherlock’s rim before pressing it back in again. He repeats the action a few times, watching in rapt fascination as Sherlock’s hole flutters and catches around the flared end of the plug. A bit of his own release is pulled to the surface, and trickles down Sherlock’s crack. It’s beautiful. It’s all _fucking_ beautiful.

And then, there’s nothing but silence.

The next thing John knows, Sherlock’s pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, extricating his spent cock from between John’s wet thighs. Wordlessly, he rises to his feet and makes his way to the loo, returning moments later with two warm, wet flannels, one of which he hands to John.

“Cheers.” John reaches down and begins to mop up the mess on his legs, diligently averting his eyes as Sherlock wipes down his own prick. Then he reaches back behind himself, but John sits forward and catches his wrist. “Wait… could I do the honours?”

Sherlock gives him a knowing smirk. “Good grief, Watson, has anyone ever told you your obsession with my arse is borderline unhealthy?” He spins around and bends over, and John gleefully parts his two plush orbs before reaching between them to pull out the plug.

“Don’t hear you complaining. Besides, I’m sure my increased heart rate is good for my pulmonary health. That’s just science.” The plug slips out easily, and John begins to tenderly wipe away the leaking come, doing his best to ignore the embers of arousal still glowing deep in his abdomen as he does so.

Sherlock issues a soft chuckle as John finishes wiping him down. Once he’s done, he goes to the loo and to toss both flannels in the hamper, and puts the plug on the edge of the bathroom sink to wash in the morning. By the time he returns to the bedroom, Sherlock is already nestled into the pillows, pulling up the duvet around himself with a sigh of contentment. John crawls into bed beside him, and flicks off the light.

“...You alright?” Sherlock’s voice is velvet-smooth in the darkness.

John shifts and pulls Sherlock into his arms; Sherlock comes willingly, and settles his head against John’s chest. “I… yeah, I think so.”

Sherlock clears his throat. “We don’t have to do that again. If it was too much. I know we’re… we’re toeing the edge of something dangerous, here, I acknowledge that, John, I do, but… I’m greedy and bossy and sometimes I just… want things that may not… may not be right for us, but I want to push us too far anyway...”

John presses a soft kiss into the top of Sherlock’s unruly mop of ringlets. “You’re not.”

Sherlock hesitates. “Greedy and bossy?”

John laughs. “No, you’re most definitely both of those things, no doubt about it. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re part of your official title. Sherlock Holmes: Greedy, Insatiable Bossypants.” Sherlock huffs good-naturedly against the skin of John’s pec. “What I meant is, you’re not pushing us too far. We’re still experimenting, Sherlock, still learning. And that’s okay.”

Sherlock shifts uncertainty, and it’s a moment before he replies. “But… you don’t like hitting.”

“Did that feel like hitting to you?”

“...No.”

“Good. It didn’t feel like hitting to me, either. I think that’s the key, here. Did it hurt?”

Sherlock snorts out a laugh, and his tone grows dismissive. “No, that wasn’t nearly hard enough to hurt. I’m not a porcelain doll, John. I got off on the impact, not the pain.”

John grins widely as something dark and hard inside of him cracks open, relief pouring into his bloodstream. “Good.”

“Good?”

“I needed to be sure you didn’t want to be in pain.” John pauses for a moment before jumping back in to clarify. “I wouldn’t judge you if you were into that, of course, it’s just… something that I wouldn’t be able to give you. I’d want you to be aware of that.”

“I know that, John. But no. I don’t want pain, that doesn’t turn me on. Just… a different kind of stimulation.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“So…”

John rolls his eyes. “So yes, Sherlock, I’ll incorporate that into a session sometime in the future. But I need you to agree to one rule about this.”

Sherlock pushes himself tighter into John’s arms. “Yes, John?”

“If I’m… if I’m doing that to you, I need you to be verbally consenting the entire time. I don’t think… I don’t think I could keep going if it were during a session where you were screaming or crying or struggling. I couldn’t handle that. Is that… does that make sense?”

Sherlock responds instantly. “Yes. Understood. I’ll give enthusiastic verbal consent throughout.”

John licks his lips. His cock is twitching despite the intensity of his previous release: he somehow can’t stop picturing how gorgeous Sherlock’s arse looked bouncing with the force of his slaps, and how desperate and needy Sherlock had looked as he writhed in ecstasy on John’s lap. 

Christ. 

He can’t wait to try it again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ve all been _very_ good this year, so here’s 50 pages of porn to stuff your stocking.

Sherlock stares fixedly down at the tray of vol-au-vents browning in the oven. Finicky things, the lot of them, but after watching numerous YouTube tutorials on the process, he’d announced to a rather stunned-looking John that he’d be making a batch to serve at their annual Christmas drinks party.

Well, ‘annual’ was a rather loose term in this case; they’d had to take a few years off, what with Sherlock’s death and then that unfortunate incident at Appledore, but since their lives had taken on a shocking degree of normalcy over the past few years, John had suggested they take it up again.

And Sherlock had acquiesced. After all, he actually had people to invite, for once in his life. People he actually _wanted_ to see and converse with and make merry. The sensation is entirely new, and it was with a degree of smug satisfaction that he’d passed John his list of invitees. John simply raised his eyebrows, gave a very diplomatic nod, and carried on agonising over which e-vite template to use on the website that had been recommended to him by Molly. (Eventually Sherlock had lost his patience and selected the balsam branch motif. It was festive yet masculine, he assured John, and John had been visibly relieved to relinquish responsibility for the decision. Sherlock internally congratulated himself on being such a supportive partner.)

But here in the moment, he’s having second thoughts. It’s not that their guests aren’t enjoying themselves; John had set up a makeshift barcart in the sitting room and was serving up a festive twist on the standard Old Fashioned, adding cranberry syrup and orange zest, and everyone appeared to be imbibing with enthusiastic gusto. As a result, barely an hour into the festivities, John, Aaron, Lestrade, Danny, and Stamford were currently engaged in a boisterous debate over the merits of Australian football vs. English rugby, and Sherlock had retreated into the kitchen in the desperate hope that he might be recused from having to even _pretend_ to give a fuck about something as tedious as sport. He’d nearly been dragged into an even duller discussion between Mrs. H, Molly, and Stamford’s wife Helen regarding what he’d quickly surmised was _cross-stitch patterns,_ but he’d managed to extricate himself in the knick of time, with the vol-au-vents providing the perfect excuse.

He leans down closer to the oven, squinting his eyes, making a rather elaborate display of pretending to be completely, utterly focused on the state of the pastry, whereas in reality, he just needed a moment of quiet away from the escalating volume of cloyingly animated chatter. He takes a mental note that despite his newly-invigorated social life, it seems he prefers one-on-one interactions. Group events appear to have remained entirely outside his wheelhouse.

“Hey, you. Need some help?” Jenny’s warm tone softens something that had wound itself tight inside his chest. He takes a deep breath and stands upright, then turns to find her peering up at him, cheeks rosy from the whisky, the trace of an amused smile on her lips.

He shrugs. “The pastries are under control.”

Jenny gives him a knowing look, and shakes her head. “Wasn’t talking about the pastries. I’ve made vol-au-vents before, and they don’t exactly require constant supervision. You alright?”

Sherlock lets out a breath and closes his eyes, a strange sort of relief washing over him. Leave it to Jenny to know exactly how he was feeling.

He pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and folds himself into it, and gestures for Jenny to do the same. She does, tucking her hair behind her ear in that way that so reminds him of Alice, it’s uncanny. Despite himself, he smiles.

“I’m fine. Just… it’s loud in here.”

Jenny laughs. Sherlock loves her laugh; it’s honest and earnest and it always makes him feel like she’s laughing _with_ him, never _at_ him, something for which he’s eternally grateful. “Well, it is a party, you know.”

Sherlock bites the inside of his cheek. “I know. But all the parties I’ve had before have been much quieter.” He pauses, furrowing his brow. “Though now that I think about it, they may have been _awkwardly_ quiet. Perhaps that’s not a good thing, either.”

Jenny just looks mildly amused and takes another sip of her drink. “Well, for what it’s worth, this is a really lovely group of people you’ve gathered here tonight. Though not sure about that Australian chap, he seems like he might be trouble.” She shoots a glance back over her shoulder, where Aaron and Danny are standing nearly chest to chest all but shouting over one another about the implications of some obscure rugby rule, but they’re both grinning wildly, so Sherlock concludes the altercation is amicable enough.

“Yeah, Aaron is… something else. He’s former military, too, you know.”

“I guessed as much. These lads in uniform will drink us under the table if we’re not careful.” She holds up her glass, and Sherlock clinks his own against it, and they both take a drink. “Where’s Rosie tonight?”

“She’s with my parents. We’re attending my great-aunt’s annual Christmas Eve gala tomorrow night, so my parents are bringing her and we’ll meet up there.”

Jenny raises her eyebrows. “A _gala?_ Sounds a bit ostentatious.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You have no idea. My mother’s side of the family is insufferably upper-class. It’s the source of my deepest shame. Though luckily, the feeling is mutual.”

Jenny laughs again, shaking her head. “I always thought you seemed a bit posh. How’d you end up here, in this grotty neck of the woods with all this rough?”

“Easy. Commoner for a father takes me out of contention for a title, plus I’m the younger of two brothers. Oh, and did I mention I’m incorrigibly rebellious, rude, anti-social, queer, and have a chronic cocaine habit?”

Jenny adapts a look of faux-scadalisation. “I’d have thought that last bit would all but _guarantee_ you a place in the aristocracy!”

The quip catches Sherlock off-guard and he nearly snorts a bit of whiskey out of his nose. Jenny notices, which makes her double over in a fit of giggles, which makes Sherlock laugh even harder, and before he knows it, they’re both red-faced and breathless, eyes brimming with tears of mirth. 

“Oy! Sherlock!” Sherlock looks up to see a similarly rosy-cheeked John shouting to him over the din in the sitting room. “Is something burning?”

“Shit, the pastries!” Sherlock whirls around and throws open the oven, which billows out a frankly alarming amount of smoke. He scrambles for the oven mitt and yanks the tray out, but the poor puffs are burnt beyond repair. Uttering a frustrated groan, he deposits the lot of them atop the stove before opening the kitchen window and attempting to disperse some of the smoke.

Jenny’s risen to her feet as well and is staring down at the charred delicacies, a look of total solemnity on her face. “Unusual finish on these, in my opinion. Is this how they do it up proper in the _stately homes,_ Your Lordship?”

Sherlock elbows her in the side and attempts to glare at her, but he can’t maintain the facade, and they both dissolve into another hapless bout of giggles.

“Everything under control in here?” Aaron’s voice is laced with vague amusement as he strides into the kitchen and takes in the scene, the destroyed vol-au-vents discarded on the stove and Sherlock and Jenny clinging to one another, tittering helplessly.

Sherlock attempts to take a deep breath and rights himself, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt in a vain attempt to cool down a bit; the kitchen feels insufferably hot and stuffy thanks to the ancient stove and radiator operating at maximum capacity. “Yeah, yeah, just… guess we’re all drinking our dinner tonight, the apps are beyond repair.”

For just a moment, Sherlock can feel Aaron’s gaze linger on the newly-exposed skin at his neckline, revealing the chain where John’s dog tags hang, and he does his best to ignore the vague pulse of heat he feels in his cheeks that has nothing to do with the temperature in the kitchen.

But Aaron’s gaze flicks upward a fraction of a second later, meeting Sherlock’s eyes, his expression amicable and friendly, without any predatory undertone. “That Indian place three blocks over we went to last week does a party platter. Should I call it in?”

Sherlock takes one look into the sitting room, where Mrs. H was currently doing a series of ill-advised heel-clicks across the room in time with the swinging holiday melody emanating from the record on the turntable. John and Stamford have their arms draped around each other and were swaying unsteadily to the beat, and Lestrade was leading Molly in a clumsy waltz whilst Danny refilled his glass.

“Um… yes. Yes, I think you’d best call that in.”

An hour later, the tone of the gathering had successfully transitioned from raucous jubilation to one of buoyant contentment. Sherlock was posted up by the kitchen sink, feeling immeasurably useful overseeing the cleanup required after the rapaciously enthusiastic consumption of the food. He can hear the sounds of mirthful chatter still emanating from the other room, but for the moment, he’s content up to his elbows in soapy dishwater.

“Need a hand? I can dry.”

Sherlock smiles as Aaron takes his place beside him. He hands him a plate, and Aaron grabs a towel and makes quick work of it.

“This is quite the party. Thanks for having me.”

“You’re welcome.” There’s a quiet companionability that settles over them as they reach a steady cadence with the dishes.

“Danny’s a nice bloke. He and John met through the rugby league?”

“Mmmhmm. He was one of the first veteran friends John made after… after everything. It’s helped John a lot, I think.”

Aaron gives a non-committal nod. 

Sherlock gives him a light hip-check. “And he’s married to Jenny, so don’t even think about it.”

Aaron barks out a laugh. “Shut up, that’s not why I was asking. I’m not _always_ looking to pull, you know. Sometimes I just like people as people.”

“Yeah. I know.” They lapse into another silence.

Sherlock thinks back to the conversation they’d had a few weeks back, after the first time John had consented to letting Aaron flirt openly with Sherlock in order to elicit a jealous response from John. It was a dynamic that John and Sherlock found undeniably arousing, but until they’d met Aaron, they’d been unable to find a way to make happen so that the third party involved wouldn’t get hurt. 

And Aaron had presented himself as the perfect solution: he’d consented to the lot of it, followed the rules and limitations that John laid out, and backed off immediately when John announced it was time to stop.

Even so, Sherlock had brought it up with Aaron the next time they went out, just the two of them. Aaron had invited Sherlock to see a special exhibit on codebreaking that was currently at the War Rooms, and they’d agreed to grab a bite to eat beforehand.

Sherlock had been nervous. A part of him wanted to avoid the topic entirely, but he reminded himself that it was important to _communicate_ in situations like theirs. He didn’t want to lose Aaron as a friend; it wasn’t as if he had many to spare, and it didn’t seem worth it to compromise their platonic connection in lieu of the occasional erotic dalliance. 

So he’d talked-- about his concerns and trepidation and his unfamiliarity with the entire dynamic they were exploring. And Aaron had listened, before chiming in with concerns and trepidations of his own. But at the end of the day, it seemed they were on exactly the same page: They were friends who shared a mutual underlying attraction that they had no intent of taking any serious action on. Sherlock was completely devoted to John, and Aaron was completely devoted to his single, newly-out lifestyle; neither saw the other as potential partner material. They would remain friends, and the rest of it… the rest of it, they’d take one step at a time, until either of them decided they’d taken it far enough.

“So you and John are headed to the countryside tomorrow?”

“Mmmhmm. Should be a rollicking good time.” He rolls his eyes, and Aaron shoots him a knowing grin; discussing family drama was one of their favourite shared pastimes. “What about you? Any plans?”

“Working. Don’t have any family nearby, so figured I may as well make myself useful and let some other poor sod get dragged off to the family stead to endure the traditional festive torture. Compared to that, spending the day thwarting potential terrorist attacks sounds downright relaxing.”

Sherlock snorts, feeling a momentary pang of jealousy, but he quickly reminds himself that Aaron’s lot in life wasn’t always what it seemed cracked up to be: he still hadn’t come out to any of his homophobic family back in Australia, making his new life in London more isolated than ever.

“You know, if you’re not busy that night, I know Jenny and Danny always go to this dinner thing organised by the Veteran’s office. She said it’s pretty casual; people just drop in and eat and whatnot, but she mentioned it’s sometimes nice, this time of year, for Danny to feel like… like he’s with people who get it.”

For a moment, Sherlock wonders if he’s overstepped; Aaron’s face seems smooth and expressionless. He realises he doesn’t know a lot about Aaron’s time in the service, and he wonders if perhaps it’s still a sensitive topic. 

But then Aaron turns to meet Sherlock’s eye, and Sherlock is relieved to see the familiar trace of a smile on his lips. “That’s… that actually might be really nice. I’ll ask her about the details.”

Sherlock opens his mouth, but before he can respond, John’s arms are wrapping around his waist, and he can feel John’s breath, warm and whiskey-sweet, against his neck. “Come on, love, duty calls. They’re asking for a song.”

Sherlock leans back into his embrace. “A song, hmm?”

“Indeed. However, there’s one caveat.”

“And what’s that?” Sherlock turns to face him, and John steps back, a devilish gleam in his eye.

And then he holds up the reindeer antlers.

By the time all the songs are sung and the whiskey is drained and cheeks are kissed and sentiments exchanged, Sherlock feels dead on his feet. John closes the door behind Mrs. H with a relieved sigh (she was always the last to leave any gathering, and John had finally made some thinly-veiled excuse about the two of them needing to pack for the countryside before she finally allowed him to help her to her feet and escort her to the stairs; Sherlock had long since abandoned social niceties and retreated back into the kitchen to wrap up an experiment John had implored him not to leave festering in their impending absence). John makes his way into the kitchen and plants an affectionate kiss on Sherlock’s cheek.

“Well, that was a successful evening.” He grabs a glass out of the cupboard and fills it with water before draining the entire thing in one go. “Though our guests may be feeling a little worse for the wear in the morning, they all but drank us out of house and home. Good call on the Indian, food, by the way.”

“Mmm. Thank Aaron for that one. I was all for just sitting back and letting the place turn into a circus.”

John gives a good-natured huff. “Alright, then, thank Aaron for me, next time you see him.” Sherlock meets John’s eye, and they exchange a fond smile. Something inside Sherlock feels very warm and content, hearing John refer to Aaron without animosity for once; perhaps this thing may just work itself out, after all.

“So.” John turns and puts his glass in the sink (strangely uncharacteristic; usually he was fastidious about washing his dishes as soon as he dirtied them…) “How much did you have to drink?”

Sherlock closes the notebook where he’d been jotting down the results of his experiment and gives John an appraising look. “Why do you ask?”

John stares squarely back at him. “Because I was thinking if you were amenable, we could _Unwind_ tonight. I know tomorrow night will be stressful, seeing your family and all, so it might do us good to blow off some steam. _Get into the Christmas spirit,_ as it were...”

It takes all of Sherlock’s willpower not to leap to his feet like an eager puppy being offered a walk. He hadn’t thought John would be in the mood, with all the party planning and travel and socialising ahead of them, plus they’d already been intimate every night so far that week… but it appears he was rather mistaken. 

He internally chastises himself for forgetting one crucial piece of knowledge he’d deduced the year before: the holidays make John horny. Extremely horny. The fact that he and John had had penetrative intercourse for an unprecedented six days in a row should have been a fairly obvious reminder, but Sherlock had been too busy feeling blissfully fucked-out after John had his way with him nightly to consider it; he didn’t dare question his motivations, and he didn’t mention the pattern emerging lest John feel self-conscious about his needs. After all, Sherlock was always the one complaining they didn’t have penetrative intercourse often enough, so he’d been all too eager to cater to John’s desires.

And now John wanted a _session,_ to top it all off? Sherlock can hardly believe his luck. Perhaps Christmas had truly come early.

He clears his throat and replies as diplomatically as possible. “I’m sober enough to consent.”

There’s a heat that flares up in John’s eyes that sends a shiver down Sherlock’s spine. “Good. Me, too.”

“Good.” 

John shifts a bit on his feet. “Before we start, I need you to answer me honestly: How are you… um, feeling?”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “... Fine? I just told you I was sober enough to consent.”

“No, I mean… we’ve… um, we’ve had a lot of sex this week, don’t think that fact’s escaped me. I realise I’ve been a little… um, greedy with my needs, I don’t usually ask to penetrate you as regularly as I have this week, and you’ve been very accommodating, but if you’re sore, I don’t want to push you too much tonight.”

Sherlock quirks his lip. “I’m feeling good, John. Just think of this week as prep work, hmm? I _want_ you to push me tonight. _Hard.”_

There’s a pause, a beautiful, elegant fermata that stretches between them, and Sherlock can all but _feel_ them both transitioning into their respective headspaces. His cock gives an eager twitch.

When John speaks again, his voice has dropped lower, gruffer, his tone more commanding, and Sherlock can feel his body responding instantaneously.

“Good. Very good, sweetheart. Now, come with me.” John extends his hand and Sherlock takes it thoughtlessly, his mind going blissfully blank. All thoughts of the party, his social awkwardness, his conversation with Jenny, his concern about Aaron, his apprehension about seeing his family tomorrow, it all disappears in an instant. There’s nothing but this, now. Nothing but this.

But to his surprise, John doesn’t turn and lead him down the hallway to their bedroom. He doesn’t guide Sherlock into the bathroom and order him to strip so John can watch him prep himself in the shower. He doesn’t take him into the sitting room and snap, their unspoken signal for Sherlock to kneel. Instead, he pulls him out to the landing and begins to lead him down the staircase.

“Um, John? Where… where are we going?” They very rarely did anything sexual (kinky or otherwise) outside the safety of their flat. Sherlock doesn’t hesitate to voice his concern; John would never be angry with him for checking in to make sure they weren’t about to do something that would make Sherlock feel uncomfortable.

“To 221C. I have a little surprise for you.”

“Oh!” Sherlock does his best to sound enthusiastic, but he’s afraid he sounds criminally unconvincing.

He _knows_ what John’s been up to all week while Sherlock was doing some freelance work at St. Bart’s. He’s a bloody _detective,_ after all; he’d have to be blind or stupid or both not to notice the foreign footprints in the downstairs foyer, the receipts squirreled away from furniture shops and hardware stores, not to mention the invoice for a small army of handymen tucked away in the back of John’s sock drawer (he wasn’t snooping, honestly, he’d just been in need of a cigarette and was making the rounds to John’s usual hiding spots). It had been only too easy to deduce John’s plans: to put the finishing touches on the renovations to 221C, and reveal it to Sherlock as a Christmas present.

Sherlock had practised his “surprised” face for no fewer than fifteen minutes in front of the bathroom mirror that very morning, and he’d been fairly certain he’d be able to pull it off.

What he hadn’t been expecting, however, was for John to treat the reveal as some sort of weird foreplay. That said, the mating rituals of _average_ couples often left Sherlock utterly perplexed, so he supposes that this is just something normal people _do:_ surprise one another with thoughtful gestures, and then celebrate with sex. 

Ah, well. That seemed simple enough. He just hopes he’s still able to remember how to make his “surprised” face when he’s honestly just eager to get on to the sexy bits.

John grins mischievously over his shoulder at Sherlock as they approach the door, and Sherlock can’t help but smile in return; it was really _adorable_ that John thought he’d been able to pull one over on him. It was sweet, really.

John grasps the doorknob and the door swings open, and he squeezes Sherlock’s hand as they take the first few steps inside.

It’s impressive. That much, Sherlock can honestly say. Despite the fact that he knew in a _nebulous_ sense that there had been a small crew working on the space all week, he hadn’t really stopped to picture what, precisely, they may be getting up to.

As it turned out, a hell of a lot. The last time Sherlock and John had been down here together, they’d just been overseeing the installation of the laboratory-grade fridge, checking the plumbing on the new sink, and making sure that the water-resistant concrete flooring they’d had poured was successfully warding off the damp. The space had been looking promising: clean, comfortable, and bright, but it was still just the bare bones of their ambitions for it: to double as a lab for Sherlock, and an office space for when they were consulting with clients.

And now, it was utterly transformed. Framing the refurbished fireplace were two leather chairs: Sherlock recognises them immediately as the ones John had caught him eyeing in the window of the furniture shop next to their favourite Thai restaurant. The chairs were gorgeous, he’d thought to himself internally, but the mid-century modern design would never mesh with the decor in 221B.

But here in 221C, with its trendy exposed brick and chic concrete floors, they look shockingly at home. They’re positioned atop a natural-fiber rug across from a loveseat, equally stylish and comfortable-looking, with an accompanying end table featuring a box of tissues (such a “John” touch: of _course_ he’d be the one to remember that their clients were constantly blubbering away during their statements)…

And the Client Chair. The Client Chair from upstairs. When on earth had John even smuggled it down here? The sight of it here in this new space makes Sherlock’s heart twist in a funny, sentimental way. 

His eyes maneuver over to a desk in the corner next to which is a stack of shelves stocked with filing boxes, ready to be filled to the brim with cases. There are curtains on the windows, elegantly patterned but thick enough to provide total privacy and discretion when drawn shut.

And then…

And then…

His lab.

It is _beautiful._

The last time he’d been down here, the stainless steel cabinetry had all been in place, but now it’s topped with the grey marbled epoxy resin countertops he’d selected (and John had promptly tried to talk him out of after seeing the price, but once Sherlock reminded him it was the most resistant to heat, flame, and aggressive chemicals, he’d quickly acquiesced). There’s an enormous safe positioned in one corner (perfect for storing hazardous materials that needed to stay out of the hands of nosy clients or opportunistic thieves), with his laboratory-grade fridge and freezer humming cheerfully next to it. And besides that, there is storage beyond his wildest imagination, enough space for _all_ of his equipment and then some. It was a true, proper lab.

He finally registers that John is staring at him with a vaguely amused expression. Sherlock realises he must be making his “surprised” face without any effort at all.

“You like it?”

Sherlock struggles to find the words. “It’s… it’s _perfect.”_

And it _is._ When he’d first proposed moving his lab and their business downstairs, a part of him worried that this would somehow _change_ them. For as long as he’d known John, 221B had been _everything_ to them: their office, their home, and everything in between-- their entire little world. To separate the two seemed daunting in a vague, inexplicable sense that had left Sherlock feeling unsettled.

But it had been necessary. Objectively, he knew that. Rosie was only getting older and more mobile; not only did this mean they needed more space for her endless supply of toys, books, and games, but it meant that having things like bottles of acid and severed thumbs strewn about without any security precautions in place was a recipe for disaster. So expanding to 221C had made perfect practical sense.

But _emotional_ sense was something else entirely.

And yet here and now, seeing it complete, all of Sherlock’s worries evaporate in a state of effortless sublimation. He didn’t need to worry. This still felt _right._

“I’m so glad you like it, love. Hope you don’t mind I took some liberties picking out the decor--”

Sherlock cuts him off, striding further into the room, taking in the ambiance. “It’s perfect, John, it’s… it’s… I love it.” He finds himself suddenly, startlingly misty-eyed; Christ, were he and John turning into a _normal_ couple, playing out the saccharine sentiments of those intolerable Christmas ads on telly? How dreadfully embarrassing…

But as soon as the thought crosses his mind, he feels John’s arms wrap around him from behind, and the urgent heat of John’s rigid length pressing demandingly against his backside. When John speaks again, his voice as taken on a considerably darker, more sultry tone. “So if you’d be amenable, _sweetheart,_ I thought perhaps we ought to christen the place tonight. Have a little… office-warming party, as it were.” The way those words sound on John Watson’s tongue, dripping with innuendo, is so obscene, Sherlock’s knees suddenly feel rather weak. He quickly concludes that no, perhaps they hadn’t become an unforgivably _normal_ couple just yet.

He presses his backside against John and arches his back suggestively, leaving little room for interpretation. “Mmmm. Yes, John, _please.”_

“Good.” John’s voice is so low, Sherlock shivers at the sensation of breath against his ear.

Then the heat of John’s body disappears, and Sherlock sways, momentarily unmoored. John strides towards the seating area, grabs a cushion off the loveseat, and tosses it on the floor between the two leather chairs, then snaps and points. In an instant, Sherlock is on his knees, his erection already beginning to tent the front of his trousers. He can’t wait to see what John has in store for him tonight.

But first, infuriatingly, John makes him _wait._ He leaves Sherlock kneeling while he goes about building a fire in the newly-restored fireplace, and it’s not until the logs are crackling away merrily and the room is filled with the glow of the flames that he finally turns and lets his eyes settle on Sherlock. Sherlock instantly tenses, sitting up infinitesimally straighter, every ounce of his attention focused on _John._ Every cell in his body is screaming at him to _placate, please, obey,_ and his cock throbs eagerly in his pants, eager for attention. He swallows hard, willing himself not to seem _too_ pathetically desperate just yet.

John’s eyes rake over Sherlock’s kneeling form, his expression unreadable, as if considering his options. Sherlock trembles in anticipation until the moment John cocks his head, gives a barely-visible nod, and makes his way over to stand before him. Sherlock has to bite back the whine threatening to escape the back of his throat.

“Hands behind your back. Open your mouth.”

God, _yes._ Sherlock loves it when John starts sessions like this: Having John’s cock stuffed mercilessly down his throat puts Sherlock into his submissive headspace so goddamn quickly, it’s almost like falling off a cliff. Before the sentence is even fully past John’s lips, Sherlock’s hands are clasped dutifully at the small of his back, his mouth is open wide, and he’s gazing up at John eagerly. 

John reaches down and twists the fingers of his right hand into Sherlock’s curls, giving him a smile imbibed with fond affection. Then he opens his flies, pulls out his prick, and shoves it in with brusk efficiency. He grants Sherlock a brief moment to adjust, swallowing dutifully around John’s generous length, willing his tongue to relax and his throat to open to receive him. The moment the back of Sherlock’s throat opens to allow John to deepthroat him, John begins to thrust.

He sets a brutal, punishing pace, and Sherlock’s eyes water as he struggles to maintain his breath without choking. Above him, John’s gripping him sternly by the hair as he fucks his face, immobilising Sherlock completely, preventing him from swaying so much as a millimeter in either direction. John’s expression has gone cold and commanding, and the sight of it sets Sherlock’s blood alight in a way that has little to do with the warmth now emanating from the fireplace.

“Mm, mm, yeah, that’s it, that’s it, love, just like that, _very_ good, oh, sweetheart, you’re so good at this, aren’t you? So fucking good for me…”

Sherlock’s eyes flutter shut as the praise washes over him. God, _yes,_ he _was_ good, so _good_ for John, only John--

“Mmmm!” With one final grunt, John snaps his hips and yanks Sherlock’s head forward until his nose is pressed firmly against John’s pubis. There’s a pregnant pause, then a moment later, the taste of John’s come floods Sherlock’s mouth and throat.

_“Ohhhh…”_ Sherlock blinks his eyes open so that he can stare up at the marvelous vision that is John Watson in the throes of a consuming orgasm. His eyes are slammed shut and his brow is a bit dewey, and he rolls his hips in tiny circles as he empties himself into Sherlock’s willing mouth in long, languid pulses. Sherlock swallows enthusiastically around him, humming contentedly the way he knows John likes it best, so that the deep vibrations prolong his pleasure.

At long last, John pulls Sherlock back off his spent prick. He releases his grip on Sherlock’s hair and tucks himself casually back into the trousers. His cheeks are endearingly pink, and the sight of it makes Sherlock smile. He’s pleased John. He’s doing well.

“Jesus Christ, sweetheart, the things you do with that mouth of yours ought to be illegal.” John reaches down and swipes an errant drop of come from the corner of Sherlock’s mouth with his thumb, then holds it out for Sherlock to lick off. “Fucking beautiful. How are you feeling, love?”

Sherlock clears his throat. “Good, John.”

“Good.” John takes two steps back and crosses his arms. “You can move your hands now. Take off your suit jacket and shirt. Don’t fold them, just put them down next to you. I’ll watch.”

Sherlock’s cock twitches. Of all the phrases he loves hearing John utter, _‘I’ll watch’_ is most _definitely_ in the top three.

He makes a little show of it, shrugging of the jacket with a suggestive roll of his shoulders, maneuvering it down his arms as he stares intently into John’s eyes, biting his bottom lip the way he knows John likes. Once he’s through with the jacket, he starts on his shirt buttons, letting John ogle his nimble fingers as he exposes inch after inch of pale flesh in slow, agonising progress. He bats his eyelashes demurely, lowering his chin in a display of submission, and by the time the crimson materials is cascading onto the floor, John is staring at him like he’s something to _eat._ Sherlock simply reaches up to where John’s dog tags lie resting against his sternum, then raises them to his lips to give them a soft, sultry _lick_ before letting them fall back to his chest.

John looks a bit taken aback by the brash gesture. “God damn, the things you do to me, sweetheart. So fucking sexy for me like this. Put those tags back in your mouth and give them a nice suck for me, yeah?” 

Sherlock complies instantly - honestly, he was hoping John would make him suck his tags tonight, and he’s glad his little _suggestion_ was perceived as a helpful hint, not an insolent display of insubordination, as if he were trying to take control. But John understood what he wanted. Of _course_ John understood.

The cool metal discs feel soothing against his tongue, and he watches with a keen sense of curiosity as John picks up his discarded garments from the floor and deposits them haphazardly on the loveseat. Then John makes his way over to a cupboard next to the filing shelves, opens it, and begins to rummage through it.

Sherlock was perplexed. What on earth could John have in there? While Sherlock wasn’t necessarily the type to notice if a piece of furniture went missing (as was the case with the Client Chair), he _certainly_ would have noticed if any of his lab materials had gone MIA. There was no way John could have moved any of that down here without him knowing…

But then John is turning around and holding out his hands to show Sherlock what he’s fetched. And Sherlock forgets how to breathe.

Clasped in his hands are long lengths of jute rope. But unlike the black jute rope they keep upstairs, this rope is a gorgeous, exquisite burgundy, deep red and provocative and so fucking _beautiful,_ Sherlock feels a bit light-headed with delirius longing.

He utters a long, low whine in the back of his throat as John approaches him, but John’s only response is a wicked grin. He reaches down and gently removes his tags from Sherlock’s mouth.

“Alright, love. I’d like to tie you up tonight, would that be alright?”

“God, yes, John.” Sherlock responds so quickly, he sounds frantic.

“Alright. I’m going to start with your chest and arms only; your legs will still be free.” Sherlock knows why John is telling him this; during one of their post-mortem conversations about bondage, Sherlock had mentioned that sometimes having his legs restrained made him feel panicky, so ever since then, John had started asking for consent to do that separately from the other types of bondage they engaged in. “Can we review our rules, sweetheart?”

“Yes, please, John.”

“No moving or speaking unless it’s to let me know something doesn’t feel right, or to signal a stop. You’ll have limited mobility, but it shouldn’t impact your bloodflow, so if you feel any numbness or tingling, you’ll tell me immediately. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“The bind I’ll be doing can, in some positions, restrict your airflow. Is it alright if we do a little breathplay tonight?”

Christ, could this evening get any better? “Yes.” He does his best not to sound too embarrassingly earnest.

“Excellent. So your airflow will be restricted at times, but it shouldn’t be enough to cause dizziness or lightheadedness. If you experience either of those things, or anything feels tighter than you want it to be, you need to let me know. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“And last: if you want to stop, just say stop. If you want to take a break, we’ll take a break. If you can’t speak, snap your fingers. Yes?”

“Yes.” 

“Good. Let’s begin.”

And with that, John positions himself so that he’s kneeling behind Sherlock. He presses a single chaste kiss to the top vertebrae of Sherlock’s spine, making Sherlock keen and arch. Then calmly, deliberately, he positions the first length of rope across Sherlock’s chest, and gets to work.

Sherlock drifts. It’s a beautiful, pure drift, the kind he always craves when his brain is running too fast or his transport won’t cooperate or his hard drive won’t reboot. He also discovers, much to his delight, how wonderfully _soothing_ it is to be watching a fire while John works on him. Something about the hypnotic way the flames dance seems to mirror the trance John puts him under in moments like these, and he loses himself entirely, the world a distant buzz, vague and unconcerning. There is nothing but this, him and John, together, making beauty.

“How are we feeling, sweetheart?” John’s voice sounds far away, and Sherlock is forced to make himself surface, to take stock of what’s going on.

He looks down to see that John’s put him in a fairly standard chest harness. It looks lovely; John’s knotwork has become impeccable with practice, and the unique colour of the rope adds a flare of the deviant to the design, offsetting the porcelain-pale white of Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock feels himself smile.

“Good, John. I feel good.”

“Good. Now for this next part, love, I need you to stay with me and be responsive, yeah? I know you like to drift off when I’m working on you like this, but this bit is something different from what we’ve done before, so we both need to stay present. Can you do that?”

“Yes, John.”

“Alright. Just stay still, love, very quiet and still…” And with that, John loops the length of rope completely around Sherlock’s torso, from his sternum all the way around his back and then to the other side. Then his fingers do some fascinating, magical _twist,_ and the next thing Sherlock knows, John’s looping the rope back around in the other direction. Over and over he repeats the move, until it suddenly dawns on Sherlock exactly what he’s doing.

John’s making him a corset.

A rope corset.

_“Oh, God…”_ The realisation sets his blood alight, and his turgid cock feels as though it just may burst out of his trousers completely of its own accord.

“You alright, love?” Sherlock realises that John’s frozen in place; he clearly wasn’t sure whether Sherlock’s exclamation had been one of pleasure or trepidation.

“God, yes, John, I just… Tighter. I want it tighter, please.”

Behind him, John chuckles, and then presses a light kiss to the spot below Sherlock’s left ear that always makes him giggle and twitch. “We’ll make it tighter once I have everything in place, I promise. But right now, I’ve just got to make sure I get the spacing right, okay?”

Sherlock nods, not trusting himself not to choke on his own desperation. John resumes binding him, and Sherlock watches in rapt fascination as the corset takes shape, encasing the lower half of his torso entirely before cinching in at the waist. 

_Finally,_ John seems satisfied with his ropework. Sherlock can feel him tie the pattern off in a knot that settles on his coccyx, and he shifts a bit, taking in the sensations. The corset feels nice, but it’s still quite loose. He does his best to be patient.

“Okay, love. We’re ready to start tightening now. Can you take a deep breath for me?” Sherlock complies instantly. “Now, let it out.” As he does so, John yanks _hard_ at the top rows of rope comprising the corset, and Sherlock can feel his breath catch in his chest. The next thing he knows, there’s the glorious, comforting sensation of _pressure_ encasing his lungs. It feels wonderful.

“Very good, love. Again.” Over and over, John makes Sherlock repeat the process, each time working his way further down the corset, until finally, he’s securing the lowest loop of rope tightly in place. Sherlock feels perfectly, overwhelmingly incapacitated.

“Mmmm, that looks lovely, sweetheart. Going to tie up your arms, now. Clasp your opposing elbows behind your back.” Sherlock assumes the position effortlessly; of all the ways John ties up his arms when they’re doing this, the forearm bind is the most common, and he settles into the familiar sensation, rolling his shoulders back helpfully to keep his posture upright and presentable for John.

John makes quick work of it. “Gorgeous. There we go, love. Struggle a little for me?” Sherlock does his best to pull his arms free, but John’s done an impeccable job; there’s barely any give at all, and the little movement he is able to attain is rendered moot by the tight compression of the corset around his torso. He moans in satisfaction.

 

John reaches down to take Sherlock’s hands in his own and gives them a squeeze. It’s the system they use to ensure that the bindings aren’t too tight: Sherlock squeezes back instinctively, and John issues a satisfied hum.

“Fuck, that’s perfect. Would you like to see how you look, sweetheart?”

“Yes, John. Please, John.” Sherlock is unsurprised to hear a bit of tremble in his own voice. The way John makes him feel when they’re doing this, it transforms Sherlock completely from his haughty, untouchable self into a desperate, helpless _creature._ He loves it.

“Alright, then.” John rises to his feet and walks over to grab onto something next to the wall on the fireplace.

Sherlock nearly faints with delight. It’s the _mirror,_ the full-length mirror, the one that’s been down here since they first saw the space, all those years ago, while they were on the hunt for Karl Powers’ shoes. The room had been almost completely bare, with the exception of the single mirror propped up in the corner.

And now John’s turning it around so that Sherlock can see his own reflection, leaning it back against the wall and returning to Sherlock’s side, ruffling his hair affectionately as Sherlock stares at the perfection of his own form. John’s outdone himself this time: the corset is perfection beyond compare. Sherlock moans again and leans his head into John’s caresse, and he watches their reflection as John gazes down at him with a look of immeasurable affection on his face. 

“You like it, love?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

“I’m so glad.” John’s voice is infuriatingly casual. The next thing Sherlock knows, John’s turned to grab one of the leather armchairs, and he’s positioning it directly behind where Sherlock remains resolutely knelt. “So now I’d like to make you feel good, love. Will you let me play with you a bit?” John lowers himself into the chair and brackets Sherlock’s torso with his spread legs.

Sherlock nods, his eyes still transfixed by their reflection in the mirror. It’s so perfect, him kneeling in front of John, desperate and needy, and John sitting on the chair behind him, cool and composed, his Captain through and through.

“Mmm. Good.” And with that, John pulls Sherlock back a bit to lean between his spread legs. Then John licks his fingers, and brings them down to Sherlock’s nipples, exposed and hard and beautifully framed by the rope of the chest harness.

Sherlock gasps at the initial contact. He’s already intensely aroused, and the feeling of John’s fingers on such a sensitive part of his body is wholly consuming.

“Oooh, is that a bit too much? Shhh, it’s alright, love, just relax…” John relents a bit and simply traces feather-light circles around Sherlock’s areolas, the moisture from his fingertips causing Sherlock’s nipples to pebble even further.

“Ohhhh…” Sherlock moans, and his head lolls a bit to the side. In the reflection in the mirror, he sees John smile.

“There we go, nice and easy, yeah? Just let me make you feel good, sweetheart…” And John proceeds to do exactly that. 

For a while, he simply brushes light strokes across Sherlock’s areola, not stimulating him too directly, just petting him gently, controlling his arousal like a master puppeteer at work. Once Sherlock has relaxed completely (and, if he’s honest, been lulled into a false sense of security), John slowly takes his nipples between his forefingers and thumbs and begins to pinch and squeeze.

“Ahhhhhhhh…” Sherlock arches up into the contact; he’s somewhere in that grey zone between aroused and overstimulated; he wants John to touch his nipples more, but he simultaneously wishes he’d just leave them the hell alone.

“Mmm, you like that, hmm?” John relinquishes his grip with his left hand and reaches down to unfasten Sherlock’s trousers. He pulls open his flies and then reaches inside and pulls out Sherlock’s throbbing cock, exposing him for the first time.

“Oh! Ohhhh!” The touch of John’s fingers against the turgid flesh of his prick feels _phenomenal,_ but John immediately withdraws his hand and returns his attentions to Sherlock’s nipples, leaving his cock red-hot and bobbing obscenely in front of him. Sherlock looks at himself in the mirror and is both awestruck and mortified at how debauched he looks: His chest and torso are a maze of crimson rope, his nipples blood-red and peaked between John’s nimble fingers, and his member is flushed and wet at the tip. “Ohhhhh…”

“Mmm, that’s right, love, let me hear you. Let it all out.” John pinches his nipples harder and then begins to pluck them, the sensation simultaneously painful and erotic.

_“Ohhhhhhhhh! Oh! OH! OH--nnngh.”_ He abruptly snaps his mouth shut: That last exclamation had been so loud, the reverberations had echoed off the cement floor and empty walls.

Sherlock was rarely one to censor himself during sex. He was vaguely aware that he was enthusiastically vocal during the act of coitus, and John seemed to greatly appreciate this fact. Back before the Fall, he never paused to consider whether anyone might overhear him. After all, if they did, it was their issue to deal with, not his; he and John were simply engaging in a perfectly natural act, and he wasn’t about to take it upon himself to deal with the odd qualms and sensitivities of others. And if Mrs. H wanted to bang on her ceiling with a broomstick on nights they were being particularly intense, it didn’t stop her from bringing up tea and biscuits and making thinly-veiled innuendos in their general direction the next day, so as far as he could tell, there was no _incentive_ to stop.

But that was before. Now that Rosie was in the picture, Sherlock had had to learn to control himself. While it was true that her nursery being on a different floor provided them with a bit of privacy, on more than one occasion Sherlock had accidentally woken her and learned the hard way that when given a choice between tending to his crying daughter and satisfying his horny partner, John made the _respectable, responsible_ choice _every goddamn time._ So on nights that Rosie was home and they were being intimate, Sherlock had learned very quickly to keep his voice down.

Eventually, it had become a matter of habit. Not only did it guarantee that Rosie not be disturbed, but he noticed that Mrs. H was considerably less snarky with the two of them when they weren’t constantly “carrying on like baboons in heat,” as she’d apparently once put it to John. (“Well, she’s never complained about it to me, so it hardly seems that serious.” “Sherlock, she’s never complained about it to you because she knows you don’t give a rat’s arse about other people’s scandalised morals. You went to bloody Buckingham Palace without pants on, for Christ’s sake.” Sherlock had begrudgingly concurred.) Of course, there were the glorious times that both Mrs. H _and_ Rosie were gone and he was allowed to be as wildly enthusiastic as he liked, but those occasions were tragically few and far between.

So tonight, he bites back his moan and swallows it dutifully down; after all, he doesn’t want Mrs. H to become concerned that someone had broken into 221C and come tottering downstairs to investigate.

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t be shy, let me hear those beautiful noises you make…” John gives both of Sherlock’s nipples a resolute twist, and he grits his teeth to hold in the scream threatening to escape him.

“Don’t want… to alarm… the neighbours…”

Behind him, John issues a dangerous chuckle before digging his fingernails resolutely into the pebbled buds he’s currently torturing. Sherlock’s cock issues an obscene pulse of precome, even before John leans forward to murmur low and soft in his ear.

“That’s funny, thought you were supposed to be the observant one, love.” John sinks his teeth lightly into the shell of Sherlock’s ear sending gooseflesh down his spine, and he quivers helplessly in response. What in God’s name was John talking about?

He forces his eyes away from the obscene display playing out in the mirror, and casts a desperate glance around the room. He still can’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“Look up.” The command is barely a whisper, but Sherlock flicks his eyes up to the ceiling. His breath catches in his throat.

Soundproof tiles.

The entire ceiling was covered in soundproof tiles.

The realisation hits him like a tonne of bricks. The moment it clicks into place, he suddenly notices nearly a half-dozen other modifications that had somehow slipped by him when he was initially viewing the space.

The walls that weren’t comprised of the exposed brick they’d uncovered when they were doing away with the rotting plaster are newly drywalled, and they sit a consistent nine centimetres further in than they had originally: An indication that standard soundproof insulation had been installed (not that Sherlock normally cared much about acoustics, but he’d once solved the case of a serial killer who’d soundproofed his attic for far more nefarious purposes). The door, when it had swung shut, had created a slight draft, indicating it boasted a professional-grade seal. The drapes, while stylish, were also heavy, perfect for sound absorption.

_John had taken all of this into consideration and soundproofed the bloody flat._

Sherlock feels like the world is upside down. _“Jesus, John…”_

John ceases his ministrations on Sherlock’s nipples and shoots him a concerned look. “You alright?”

Sherlock can barely string together a coherent thought. “Yes, yes, oh my God, I didn’t… didn’t realise…”

John just laughs and resumes plucking Sherlock’s inflamed nipples. “I know. That’s how I knew how damn far gone you were.”

“Oh God, oh _God…”_ The thought of John arranging for soundproofing, perhaps telling the contractor that Sherlock’s experiments were often accompanied by animated explosions (and honestly, that wasn’t too far off the truth) but in reality, readying the space so that he could make Sherlock _scream…_

_“Nggggahhhh!”_ John digs his nails in once more, and Sherlock throws his head back and cries out, wanton with abandon. “Ah! AH! OH, John! Yes! YES! Mmmmm-- fuck, YES!”

John lowers his head to bite as suck a series of decadent love-bites across Sherlock’s exposed shoulders and back. He diligently avoids any skin that was liable to be exposed at the gala, but the rest he works over with his teeth, lips, and tongue, marking Sherlock, claiming him, making him _his._

And for an eternity, John strings him out on a wire, stimulating nothing but his tender nipples, watching hungrily as beneath his hands, Sherlock falls apart. Sherlock screams, cries, begs, and moans, for once in his life not having to wonder if Mrs. Turner would call the cops on them. They were safe. They were finally, truly _alone._

 

All too soon (yet not nearly soon enough), John pulls back and relinquishes his vise-like hold on Sherlock’s abused buds. He gingerly wets his fingertips and brings them down to lightly pet his inflamed chest as Sherlock shakes and whimpers in his arms. A sensation of relief washes over him: As delightful as the overstimulation was feeling, he’d just begun to sense he was drawing close to orgasm, and he didn’t want to disappoint John by coming without permission.

“There we go, mmmm, very nice, very nice indeed. How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“God, good, John, so good…” Sherlock’s words are slurred; he feels nearly drunk with endorphins, and John grins down and places a quick kiss atop his head.

“Glad to hear it. Stand up. I’ll help.” John maneuvers the chair back and rises gracefully out of it before bending to help Sherlock unsteadily to his feet. Sherlock’s legs feel rather like an undercooked pudding.

“Come with me, love.” Sherlock dimly registers his surroundings as John guides him over to the lab side of the room. They come to stand directly in front of the large centre island, the pristine workspace shining in the dim light of the fire. “Alright, sweetheart. Going to immobilise you now: Your torso will be tied down, but your legs will still be free. Give me a verbal yes or no.”

Sherlock turns to see John’s holding several more lengths of jute rope. He has no idea where John procured them, nor does he particularly care. “Yes.”

John beams. “Good. Over you go, then.” And with that, John guides him forward until his pelvis is nearly touching the edge of the island, then presses down on his shoulders to force his torso face-down onto the surface.

He wails as his nipples come into contact with the freezing cold epoxy resin. The effect is initially soothing, but quickly turns to agony as they pucker in response, but John just runs a reassuring hand up and down the matted line of knots running along his spine. “Shhh, it’s alright, easy there, just relax.” Sherlock closes his eyes and does his best to follow the command, and he eventually relaxes gracefully into position.

“Lovely. Now hold still. Stay ‘stop’ if you want to stop, or snap if you can’t speak. Understood?”

“Yes, John.”

“Good.” And with that he feels John’s hands fiddling with the ropes traversing his back. There’s just enough give that when he feels John’s hands disappear and a slight tug at the rope, he’s able to lift his head to peer over at exactly what John is doing. He blinks uncomprehendingly as John fidgets with something hidden beneath the edge of the island.

John looks over and notices him watching, and for a moment, Sherlock’s concerned he may be angry. But instead, John just gives him a pleasant smile and carries on. “I’ve had the island rigged with a series of loops and hooks underneath this top ledge.” His tone is conversational, unfazed. He flicks the end of the rope he’s currently holding down and around, and when he pulls it taut, Sherlock can feel his body being pulled securely down onto the surface. “That way, when I want you laid out like this, I can secure you in place nice and easy, see?” He pulls the rope back towards Sherlock’s bent form, then Sherlock can feel him weave it through the knots along his spine before pulling it out the other side and taking it to the opposite end of the table. “It’ll also be very convenient for when we want to run some more of our own little experiments, hmm?”

Sherlock moans and shudders, recalling the time John had tied him down on the kitchen table upstairs and seen how many orgasms he could wring out of him in an hour. It had been exquisite agony.

John carries on, apparently completely unaffected. “But for now, I just want to make sure you hold nice and still for me while I give your arse a little attention. How does that sound?” He gives the rope a firm tug, and Sherlock gasps as the binding to the table pulls his corset tight.

“Good, John. That sounds good.”

“Good. Now hold still while I finish up.”

As if he had any choice. The chest harness is securing him firmly to the table, the corset is keeping his breathing light and laboured, and the binding around his forearms has rendered him completely incapacitated. 

He moans. John just keeps working.

Eventually, John steps away. Sherlock can’t see him; he’s standing off somewhere around to the side, clearly admiring his handiwork. Sherlock takes the opportunity to try and raise his torso even a fraction of an inch off the table, but it’s absolutely no use; he’s in the centre of a spider’s web. He doesn’t stand a chance.

“Very nice. You’re looking beautiful, love.”

“Thank you, John.” The words sound a bit tight in his throat, and he focuses on maintaining his steady, shallow breaths.

“Christ, your arse looks so delicious tonight. Let’s see what we have, here.” Four footsteps, then Sherlock can feel John’s firm hands tug down his trousers and pants before settling on his buttocks to pry his cheeks apart, exposing him. “Oh, that’s very nice. Look at that hole, so pretty and tight, even though you’ve taken my cock every night this week.” He runs his thumb lightly over Sherlock’s rim, testing him. “You’re so good for me, love, aren’t you?”

“Yes, John.”

“And this arse is all mine, isn’t it?” He gives Sherlock’s cheeks a playfully jiggle, and Sherlock can’t help but giggle in response.

“Yes, John. All yours.” Despite his limited range of motion, he does his best to arch and present himself. He _adores_ the way John feels about his arse.

“Mmm. Let’s see how you taste.” And with that, John licks a thick, wet stripe up the length of Sherlock’s crack before pulling his cheeks as wide as possible, and pressing his tongue firmly inside.

Sherlock nearly loses his damn mind. He always does, every time John rims him; it feels bloody _magnificent,_ and the fact that he’s tied down and helpless and completely at John’s mercy is such a rush, it magnifies the sensations tenfold.

John doesn’t spare a single measure. He licks, sucks, fingers, and tongues Sherlock’s opening until Sherlock is delirious with pleasure. Sherlock’s entire body grows heated and damp with a sheen of sweat, he’s shaking from head to toe, and all he can think about is how badly he needs John’s cock inside of him _right the hell now._

“Fuck, John, please! PLEASE! Oh God, oh GOD, please! Take me, God, take me now, I need it, fuck, need you so badly, please…”

John remains unswayed by Sherlock’s vulgar soliloquy, and it’s entirely of his own volition when he eventually pulls away, apparently satisfied. Before him, Sherlock has been transformed into a pathetic, quivering puddle of want.

John clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice sounds so casually conversational it boggles Sherlock’s mind. “Now, I have another little surprise for you, love. Stay there.”

Sherlock nearly barks out a laugh; there was no chance in hell he was moving so much as an inch in either direction, but the irony seems to be lost on John entirely.

The next sound Sherlock hears is the unmistakable sound of the freezer opening and closing. His brow furrows, and his mind whirls… What on earth could John be planning on using from the _freezer?_ They’d experimented with ice a few times in the past, but that certainly didn’t seem extreme enough for John to categorise it as a new surprise.

More footsteps. They come to a halt on the opposite side of the table. Sherlock struggles to lift his head up and turn his gaze forward, where it falls on John’s commanding form.

“Okay, love. Can you see this?”

He holds up something in his hands. Sherlock peers at it and narrows his eyes, attempting to process exactly what it is. It looks a bit like large, rounded icicle.

“Yes?” His confusion must be evident, because John lets out a fond chuckle.

“Okay, better question: Do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“It’s a glass dildo. Have you ever used one before?”

Sherlock’s stomach does an odd sort of somersault. A new toy? He must have been _very_ good this year, indeed.

On second thought, upon reviewing the exact size of the dildo, he’s not quite sure whether it’s intended to be a reward or a punishment. He furrows his brow in confusion.

“Sherlock? Have you ever used one of these before?”

“No.”

“Okay. Let me tell you a bit about what to expect, yeah? These are great for temperature play, which I know we’ve both enjoyed in the past. However, the material is incredibly rigid and unyielding, which can lead to discomfort if something is hitting the wrong angle or you’re not properly prepped. Can I trust you to let me know if this causes you more discomfort than you want?”

Sherlock understands what John is asking: Sherlock enjoys painful sex, but neither of them are into outright pain play, so John trusts Sherlock to discern what falls into which category for himself. “Yes, John.”

“Okay, then.” With that, John makes his way around the table to stand behind Sherlock. Sherlock feels John’s palm grasp his right buttock, pulling him open. He holds his breath.

“Sweetheart? I need you to relax and breathe. Can you do that for me while I put this in you?”

Sherlock lets his cheek rest heavily against the cool surface of the island and takes a deep breath-- well, as deep as he can, considering the restraints of his corset. “Yes, John. I’m ready.”

“Alright. Say stop if you need me to.” And with that, Sherlock feels the ice-cold tip of the dildo press firmly against his wet, open hole.

“Oh, God.” He shifts, spreading his feet as far as he can at this angle, exposing himself to John’s ministrations. He could do this. He trusted John completely.

“Gorgeous, love. Here we go.” And in one steady, firm, push, John presses the device inside.

Sherlock throws back his head and lets loose a litany that would make the members of his Homeless Network blush. He feels obscenely stretched and stuffed full, but more than that, the damn thing is so bloody _cold,_ he can feel every icy inch of it work its way into his passage. 

When it finally comes to rest, Sherlock wails at the sensation. The cold makes it achingly consuming, forcing him to acknowledge exactly how deeply he’s being penetrated. His rim, which moments ago felt blood-hot as a result of John’s efforts, now feels obscenely open, the chill of the glass against the sensitive nerve endings so agonising he can hardly stand it. He shifts and gyrates his pelvis, seeking relief, but finds none; just more frigid, unrelenting _cold._

“Oh, Jesus, that’s beautiful.” Behind him, John sounds more than a little awestruck. Sherlock just whimpers and helplessly thrusts his hips; his cock seems _more_ than thrilled with this recent turn of events, but there’s nothing in front of him to provide any friction, and his bindings are too tight for him to adjust the angle.

“J-John. John, fuck, I need to come. Please, please let me come…”

“You want to come, hmm?” He can feel John’s fingers on the base of the dildo, and the next thing he knows, John’s moving it in and out of him in maddening, dizzying oscillations. The sensation is entirely foreign to him; he’s never before been able to feel just _how far_ into his channel anything’s been pushed, but the juxtaposition between the ice-cold glass and the heat of his body is making it all too apparent. It’s erotic beyond words.

“Yes, please, John, fuck, I need it. I need it.”

“Alright, love. You’ve been very good, so I suppose I’ll let you have a bit of relief.” Sherlock nearly sobs at the reassurance. “But I was thinking, since you’ve been so good, I’m going to give you two options to choose from.”

Sherlock blinks uncomprehendingly. He can’t think about anything besides what’s happening inside his arse. He doesn’t respond.

“I can either fuck you with this until you come, just like I’m doing now.” Sherlock whimpers. What John’s doing to him feels _incredible,_ and he can only imagine what it would feel like to have his arse clamped around the dildo in the throes of a consuming orgasm. “Or, if you’re up to it, I can seat this inside you and spank you until you come.”

Sherlock’s nearly certain he’s had a stroke. He knew John had enjoyed spanking the first time they’d tried it two weeks ago (well, he knew John had been _aroused_ by the spanking; his powers of deduction had been enough to reassure him of that), but he wasn’t sure John was up for repeating the endeavor; he’d seemed incredibly nervous about how close they were coming to pain play, and Sherlock hadn’t wanted to push him further than he was ready for. And yet here he was, offering to spank Sherlock to completion with an ice-cold glass dildo up his arse.

Sometimes Sherlock wonders how the hell he got so lucky.

“Oh, Christ, John, spank me, please…” He doesn’t even register his lips forming the words; they seem to tumble out of their own accord, desperate and needy.

“Mmm, alright. But we need to review our rules first, alright?”

“Fuck, yes, anything, John, _please,_ just--”

Suddenly, the thrusting in his arse stops, and when John speaks, his voice is laced with warning. “Don’t rush me right now, sweetheart. If this is happening, it’s happening on my terms. I’m not letting us get carried away.”

“Right, John. Sorry, John.”

The thrusting starts again.

“Once I have this seated, I’ll apply pressure to your arsecheek so we can determine the correct angle for me to aim at. I won’t raise my hand until we’ve established that parameter. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Once I start spanking you, you’re allowed to tell me what you need. Faster, slower, harder, gentler, you’re controlling what’s happening. It’s up to you to tell me what to do to get you off. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“If you need something harder than what I’m willing to give you, I’m going to tap out, but I don’t want you to worry. I’ll still make sure you get off, just not by spanking. You don’t need to feel guilty or upset, I’m just making sure that we’re both being safe right now. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“And last, I need consistent, enthusiastic verbal consent _the entire time this is happening._ Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Let’s get started.” 

And with that, John pushes the dildo in as far as it will go, until Sherlock feels the flared base seated firmly against his rim. John keeps one hand on the base of the dildo, holding it in place, while his other massages Sherlock’s arsecheek.

“Alright, love. Tell me when.” With that, John begins to apply firm pressure against Sherlock’s cheek. When Sherlock doesn’t respond, he moves his hand a bit to the right, and tries again.

This is how John establishes the location in which he needs to spank Sherlock in order to stimulate his prostate. Sherlock had insisted from the beginning that it wasn’t _hitting_ or _pain_ he was getting off on in this situation; it was simply a very specific type of prostate stimulation. John had (reluctantly) agreed to investigate, leading to a rather positive outcome (in Sherlock’s admittedly subjective opinion).

Suddenly, he’s hit with a jolt of arousal so strong it knocks the wind out of him.

“There! Fuck, Jesus, _there, right there…”_ He’s struggling to drag in enough breath to form the words, and John chuckles at his apparent desperation.

“Right… here?” John presses down again and Sherlock throws back his head with a shout, his toes curling up in his wingtip shoes, hands clenching futilely as his arms strain against his bindings.

“GAH, John, please, please--”

He’s about to turn the begging up a notch, use his most pathetic and placating tone, make a show of his utter submission, _anything_ to get John to give him that feeling again, but before he can even formulate a strategy, John raises his hand and delivers the first slap.

It’s euphoria.

There’s no other way to describe it.

There’s no pain-- perhaps a fleeting sting, no more than a flicker of shock at the sensation of impact, but nothing that registers as “hurt” anywhere in Sherlock’s dopamine-addled brain. Instead, there’s a glorious, urgent _pressure_ that originates from the nub of nerves buried deep inside him, but that resonates outwards until it feels like every nerve ending in his body is alight, electrifying his arousal in a way he’s never experienced it before. It’s a pleasure so exquisite, the only thing he wants in this mortal world is _more._

And then he remembers that in order to get _more,_ he has to hold up his end of the bargain. He blinks rapidly, forcing his short-circuiting hard drive to comply.

“GOD, YES! John, yes, that’s it, more, please, more, _more--”_

John lands another three slaps in a steady, deliberate rhythm, the sound of flesh on flesh echoing obscenely through the room.

“FUCK! Ngggggggg… oh God, _God…_ Faster, please, I need… faster…”

John picks up the pace, and Sherlock’s eyes roll back in his head as they flutter shut, surrendering himself to the pleasure. It’s perfect. It’s all bloody _perfect._

The dildo prods relentlessly at his prostate, hammering out a staccato rhythm of pornographic ecstasy while the frigid, unyielding texture of the glass stretches his clenching channel just to the brink of discomfort. It’s an overwhelming, intoxicating feeling, and he feels dizzy with the enormity of it.

He hadn’t been able to articulate to John just why spanking felt so good to him-- only that it was unlike anything else in their repertoire. The sharp, repetitive strikes stimulate him in a way that neither John’s cock, the vibrator, or even his anal plug ever had before. It’s not _better_ than any of those other alternatives (John’s cock being the best among them, hands-down), it’s just _different,_ and the novelty of it consumes him in a rushing, sweeping wave.

“More! More! John, YES, more! Harder-- harder, please, fuck, almost there, so close…” He wants nothing more than to simply check out and let his body take control, to scream and wail his way through the delirium of his arousal, but he’d promised John he’d stay present. He’d promised John he’d do this part _with_ him. And John is listening. John complies, and rains down a series of glorious, perfectly-aimed blows.

Suddenly, Sherlock feels his balls pull up tight, and his swollen cock gives an urgent throb between his spread legs. “John! Oh, John, I’m… I’m coming, fuck, let me come, please-- oh _fuck--”_

And before he can stop himself, he’s lost in the throes of a climax so intense, he barely registers what’s happening. It feels as though his entire _body_ is orgasming, from his cock to his arse to the tips of his fingers to the bottoms of his feet. He feels impossibly hot all over, the icy chill of the dildo a dazzling contrast as he dimly notices his passage contracting around it, prolonging his pleasure. John is still slapping his arse in a steady rhythm, unrelenting and sure, and the continued stimulation spurns on a second wave of pleasure nearly as heady as the first. By the time he feels his spent prick give a few final, feeble twitches between his legs, he couldn’t string together a coherent thought if his life depended on it.

Behind him, he hears John issue an exasperated sigh. He’s gently massaging Sherlock’s arsecheek, his ministrations tender and encouraging, but when he speaks, his tone is completely at odds with his actions.

“What the fuck was that.”

Sherlock blearily blinks his eyes open, struggling to come back to reality. The enormity of what he’s just done washes over him in a wave of mortification: he’d come without permission. Though John hadn’t explicitly forbid him from doing so at the start of their session, it was generally _implied:_ Sherlock always requested permission for his pleasure when they were _Unwinding._ It was part of their power exchange.

“I… I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry.” He can’t get enough air in his lungs against the restraint of the corset to verbalise much else. He shifts helplessly against his bindings, feeling suddenly embarrassingly exposed as his arousal retreats back to a low simmer.

“You’re sorry.” John’s tone is colder than the freezing glass that’s currently being extracted from Sherlock’s arse; Sherlock shudders at the sensation of openness as John removes the dildo and sets it aside.

“I… it felt so good, John, I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop…” 

“So you just decided to go ahead and come, regardless of what I had to say on the matter.”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” He can’t think of what else to say. He _never_ disobeys John when they’re Unwinding, and John was being so _kind_ to him tonight, so _generous,_ catering to Sherlock’s every greedy whim, and Sherlock had gone ahead and done _this._

“Shhh, sweetheart, it’s okay.” Sherlock feels John’s hands running up and down his back soothingly, tracing the pattern of the ropes, and it’s with a vague notion of surprise that Sherlock realises he’s shaking with desperation. And John is _reassuring_ him. “Shhh, it’s going to be alright, love. I’m glad it made you feel so good you lost control. I want you to feel good. But you do know that you’re going to have to be punished, don’t you?”

Sherlock nods mutely. John’s hands disappear, and Sherlock can hear his footsteps make their way to the other side of the island. The next thing he knows, the tension on his harness disappears as John loosens the ropes affixing him to the tabletop. He’s able to breathe a little more easily now, but the warning in John’s words prevents him from experiencing any real relief.

“I… I know.”

“But the good news is, once you’ve endured your punishment, everything will be fine. All will be forgiven. Does that sounds good, love?”

Sherlock gives a miserable nod. “Yes, John.”

“Alright, sweetheart. Up we go.” John moves to stand beside him and haul him upright by the back ropes of his harness, and Sherlock complies thoughtlessly, the world around him fuzzy and surreal. He vaguely registers swaying slightly from foot to foot as John goes about divesting him of his shoes, socks, trousers, and pants, but everything feels rather far away and unimportant. The only important thing is being good for John. He was bad, but now he will be _good,_ and John will _forgive_ him, and everything will be _perfect._ He focuses solely on that comforting thought until John rises back to his feet and gently leads Sherlock toward the corner of the room, closest to the mirror, right beside the fireplace. He can feel the heat from the fire, where it’s warmed the harsh concrete beneath his bare feet, and the dancing flames throw every angle of his body into sharp contrast. John stares at Sherlock’s bare, bound form in the mirror, and smiles. Sherlock smiles back. Everything is wonderful when they are like this.

“Now, stay right here, love.” Sherlock makes a vague sound of affirmation, and John pops back over to the cupboard, only to return with more lengths of rope. Christ, how much rope did he have in there? The thought makes him a bit nervous.

“Alright, sweetheart. Now, do you remember when we first started experimenting with Japanese bondage, we talked a bit about rigging and suspension?”

Sherlock takes a moment to activate the appropriate synopsis to access that portion of his Mind Palace. The “Negotiations” wing was the most hi-tech wing of his Palace, as he needed to be able to access it in various states of lucidity. He’s pleased to find it works properly tonight.

“Yes, John.”

“Good. So I’m going to start by rigging you upright. You’ll be held up by your harness, so the amount your breathing is restricted will depend on your ability to remain standing. Both of your feet will remain on the ground. Will you give me your consent to do that?”

Sherlock blinks at John uncomprehendingly. John was going to _rig him upright?_ To… what, exactly? Though they’d looked at some pictures of rigging and suspension together when they were first negotiating on the subject (and sure, masturbated one another in the process-- the images were undeniably erotic), the ceiling of 221B was barely stable as it was-- as Sherlock had discovered when his latest mannequin experiment had brought down several ceiling tiles and a disconcerting amount of drywall when he’d been battering it with a cricket bat.

But they weren’t in 221B anymore.

Sherlock looks up, and his breath catches in his throat.

There’s a hook on the ceiling.

It’s made of some sort of dark metal (iron, if he had to guess from this distance), and it’s bolted securely to one of the exposed beams traversing the room. It’s incredibly strange - Sherlock hadn’t even registered its presence when he’d first looked around the room, but now that he knows John’s intentions, he has no idea how the _hell_ he’d missed it.

Beside him, John chuckles, following his gaze as he runs his fingers up the knots traversing Sherlock’s spine. “Thought we may want to have a bit of fun with suspension from time to time. But if we decide it’s not for us, we can just buy a massive hanging plant.”

Despite himself, Sherlock snorts out a laugh, which prompts John to start giggling, and for a moment they just stand there like a pair of loons, laughing at the ceiling and imagining all the infinite possibilities therein.

Finally, Sherlock is able to collect himself. “Yes.”

John turns to meet his eye. “Yes?”

“Yes. You have my consent.”

John’s gaze goes instantly dark and hungry. “Good.”

The next thing Sherlock knows, John’s tossed a length of rope up and over the hook, and is beckoning Sherlock over to stand beneath it, directly in front of the mirror so that he can watch as John works on him. Sherlock goes willingly, and stands stock still as John weaves the rope through the back of his harness before pulling it taut. Then John’s brow furrows as he secures it in some sort of knot at the base of Sherlock’s spine before stepping back to admire his handiwork.

“Okay. Bend your knees?”

Sherlock does, and oh _God--_

The air is sucked out of him as the corset constricts like a vise around his lungs. The pressure binds his torso tightly, pulling his shoulders back, exposing his heaving chest. He moans lavishly at the sensation: He feels completely, utterly helpless.

“Fuck, that’s gorgeous.” He looks over to see John circling him like a predator. He’s lightly palming himself through his trousers; Sherlock can tell he’s nearly fully erect again. He hopes this means John will fuck him soon. “God, that’s lovely.” He takes a deep breath and seems to center himself. “Okay. Next, I’m going to put your right leg in a bind. You’ll still be able to hold yourself up with your left. Is that alright?”

“Yes, John.”

“Good.” John grabs a length of rope, drops to his knees, and begins to weave an elaborate pattern of knots from Sherlock’s ankle to his knee. It’s a pretty, intricate design, and Sherlock watches the mirror in rapt fascination as John conjures it seemingly from nowhere. He loves watching John work on him like this; it’s like watching an artist in motion.

Eventually, John secures the bind just above Sherlock’s right knee before standing up to admire his handiwork. He still has a considerable amount of leftover rope in his hand, but he doesn’t seem troubled by that fact.

“Feel good, love?”

“Yes, John.”

“Any pain, numbness, tingling, or signs of restricted bloodflow?”

“No. John.”

“Excellent.” And with that, John steps back and casually flicks the end of the rope up and over the hook. Then he yanks the dangling end like a pulley until the rope goes taut... and continues to pull. 

Sherlock realises what he’s doing the instant he feels his left knee begin to buckle, and he lets out a desperate yelp.

“It’s alright, sweetheart, just let it go. Put your weight on your other leg, there, like that…” Sherlock shifts, and his right leg is lifted up. John continues to pull the rope until Sherlock’s knee is hoisted midway up his torso, spreading his legs obscenely.

Sherlock throws his head back and _wails._ He feels so _wanton_ and _exposed,_ and his hole feels wet and open from John’s earlier ministrations. He hazards a glance at himself in the mirror, and the image that greets him is so obscene, his cock gives a traitorous twitch.

“Oooooh, you like that, hmm?” John sounds impossibly smug as he secures the rope holding Sherlock’s leg aloft to the collection of knots at the base of Sherlock’s back. “Like it when I get you all spread open and ready for use?”

“Fuck, John, fuck…” Sherlock can’t _think,_ he can barely _breathe_ he’s so turned on. His left leg trembles a bit, but he manages to remain standing; if he were to let it buckle he’d be suspended entirely, and he knows he’s not ready for that.

Luckily, John is on the same page; he makes no mention of restraining Sherlock’s remaining free leg. Instead, he comes up behind him and wraps his arms around him, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

“You look so beautiful, love. Look at yourself.” Sherlock whimpers, and he feels John’s fingers gently prod against his hole. “Mmm, so nice and wet and open for me, aren’t you?” He slips two digits inside, and Sherlock moans, his eyes fluttering shut. “Ah ah ah, sweetheart, open your eyes. Look at me. Watch me while I finger you.” Sherlock complies, and for an indefinite amount of time, they stand like that, in total silence, simply breathing and _watching._

Sherlock watches the mirror, mesmerised by the motions of John’s hand behind him. He can’t quite see where John’s penetrating him, but he can see the motions of his arm, his wrist, and _feel_ the way John’s fingers press deeper into his channel, opening him, exploring him, touching him in places only John’s ever touched. It’s beautiful and intimate, and by the time John pulls his fingers away, Sherlock has to bite back a cry of disappointment.

“Hush, love.” John turns his head and presses a chaste kiss to the side of Sherlock’s neck. “I’ll fuck you soon enough. But first: you need to be punished, remember?”

Sherlock gives a bleary nod. “Yes, John.”

“Alright, sweetheart. Let’s get this over with.” John walks to stand in front of him, and presses a sweet, solemn kiss to Sherlock’s desperate lips. “Hold still. Don’t come.”

And John takes Sherlock’s half-hard cock in his hand, and begins to stroke.

The tears come almost immediately. The overstimulation is intense; the orgasm he’d had from the spanking had been entirely consuming, and his cock feels tight and overheated as John works it over with his firm and steady grip.

“Shhh, it’s okay, love, it’s okay, just let it happen. You’re getting nice and hard for me, aren’t you? Oh, it’s alright, it’s alright, I’ve got you…”

Sherlock hiccups and gulps and leans forward as far as his restraints will allow him, burying his face heavily into the crook of John’s neck. He feels the familiar tightness in his balls, the coiling deep in his abdomen, and he focuses on John’s touch, steady and sure.

“Ah… Ah… Ah…” He can’t hold back the pained little sounds that begin to escape him as his body hurls him towards what’s sure to be an epic climax, and he thrusts his hips earnestly forward, seeking that beautiful brink, and then--

“NGAH!” At the last moment, John’s hand disappears, and Sherlock howls wetly into the fabric of John’s shirt as his orgasm recedes in a sharp spike of agony.

“Hush, love, it’s okay, it’s okay…” John gently combs his fingers through the curls at the nape of Sherlock’s neck, gentling him through the discomfort of denial. Sherlock leans into his touch, desperate for affection, even more desperate for release…

“Shhh, I’ve got you. Three more times, love, okay? You can do this.”

“Yes, John.” The words are muffled but sure. Sherlock closes his eyes, and feels John’s fingers wrap around his turgid prick once more. He braces himself, and John begins to stroke.

True to his word, John edges him three more times, each time more painful than the last. Sherlock’s skin feels hot and tight all over his body, covered with a sheen of feverish sweat, and he shakes and swears and screams as John has his way with him time and time again. Even though Sherlock _knows_ what’s coming (or, more accurately, what’s _not_ coming), his body betrays him every time, leading him almost to the peak of that glorious crest before abruptly crashing back down, thrashing and throbbing and delirious with desire.

The bondage heightens the sensation like nothing else ever has before. He feels helpless and hopeless as he sinks deeper and deeper into John’s arms, the tight bindings of the corset grounding him, the suspension of his leg reminding him of just how utterly debauched he was, just how much he _needed_ just what John was giving him. He was being _good._ He was being _so good._

Sherlock’s sobs echo through the room as John slowly extricates himself from where he’d been standing before him, Sherlock still shaking from the strain of his fourth and final denial. “Very well done, love. Very well done.” He makes his way to stand behind Sherlock once more, and Sherlock notes that when his fingers make their way to Sherlock’s opening, they’re slick with a fresh coat of lube. Sherlock nearly cries with relief; John was _finally_ going to fuck him, and it was going to be _magnificent._

“Mmmm, still nice and open for me.” He slips two fingers inside, and Sherlock shudders as he scissors and twists them before unerringly finding Sherlock’s prostate.

“GAH!” Sherlock throws his head back at the sensation, and John lets out a contented laugh.

“Does that feel good, love?”

“Y-y-yes, John.”

“Good. Now hold still.” And with that, John reaches around Sherlock with his free arm to hold him close to his chest, and then with his fingers, he pushes down against Sherlock’s prostate, _hard._

_“GAAAAAH!”_

“Oh, yes, that’s it, love. Go ahead, make some noise for me…”

With that, John’s fingers begin to prod firmly against the bundle of nerves seated deep in Sherlock’s channel, massaging him in a way Sherlock’s fairly certain John’s never touched him before.

“Oh--oh fuck, fuck-- oh, John!”

John just lets out a hum and presses down again. The pressure is somehow both painful and exquisite all at once…

“There we are, now, how does that feel?” John continues to roll his fingertips relentlessly over the spot, and Sherlock wails. “Good, hmm? Here’s the deal, sweetheart: If you come like this, I’ll fuck you and come inside you. That will be your reward for pleasing me. Can you do that?”

Sherlock moans, completely overwhelmed by the sensation John is creating inside his arse. _Could_ he come just from this? He’d had prostate orgasms before, of course, but it usually involved repeated impact, from John’s cock or the vibrator or his plug. Could he come just from this delicious _press_ that John was currently imparting on him?

He decides honesty is the best policy. “I… I don’t know.”

“Well, I think we ought to find out.” And with that, John proceeds to unleash an assault on Sherlock’s prostate the likes of which he’s never felt before.

He’s not entirely sure what happens next; he knows major portions of his hard drive are malfunctioning, and everything feels surreal and distant but demandingly present all at once. He feels acutely aware of every place John is touching him: the feeling of John’s chest pressed firmly against his back, of John’s lips on his ear, whispering words of encouragement, of John’s right hand, pinching and twisting his sensitive nipples, and most of all, of John’s left hand, massaging his prostate in a relentless series of hard, demanding strokes.

At some point, something changes. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s as if a switch has been flipped: one moment he’s writhing in the throes of agonising ecstasy, the next, he’s experiencing a relief so intense, it seems to transcend the boundaries of the physical. He looks down and dimly notes he’s coming, but it doesn’t _look_ like an orgasm: instead, his cock is leaking a slow, steady stream of come from his slit, emerging from him in a gentle trickle instead of short, urgent pulses. 

He notes that John seems to be watching as well, and he’s issuing an enthusiastic litany of encouragement, urging Sherlock to keep going, keep letting it happen. Sherlock has no idea how he’d even go about try to stop it if he wanted to, so he’s all too happy to comply. He simply stares down, transfixed, as John pushes more and more come out of him.

Eventually, there’s nothing more coming out. His cock is still twitching, but it feels heavy and limp, and it’s with a gasp of relief that he feels John’s fingers slip away at last.

“Fuck, sweetheart, that was gorgeous, you’re so good for me, so perfect, aren’t you?” John’s right arm is still wrapped tightly around Sherlock’s chest, holding him close, but Sherlock’s dimly aware of the fact that John appears to finally be unfastening his own trousers with his left hand. He nearly cries with relief at the thought.

“Yes, John.” He tries to respond, but the words sound muffled and strange, and he doesn’t particularly care. He’d pleased John, and now John would reward him-- and that was all that mattered. That was all that mattered in this godforsaken world.

“Come here, love. Let me have you now. Just relax and be good for me a little longer.” And with that, John lines up his cock and firmly pulls Sherlock down, impaling him on it.

Sherlock utters an aborted gasp at the sensation. As John pulls his body downwards, Sherlock’s left knee begins to bend, increasing the tension on the ropes encasing his body. His chest harness pulls taut, forcing his shoulders back, redirecting some of the pressure to the bindings immobilising his forearms. The corset tightens further, restricting his breathing to the point he feels nearly incapacitated. His right leg is still suspended, opening him further to John’s advances, and he melts willingly into a position of complete and total submission. 

“Christ, fuck, you feel so good, _God,_ your arse feels amazing…” Behind him, John begins to piston brutally into Sherlock’s spread hole. It feels good-- it always does when John’s fucking him-- but he’s so wrung out and spent, his own arousal barely registers on his radar. Instead, he leans into the delirious liberation that he only finds in moments such as this one, when John is dominating him so thoroughly that he loses all sense of anything but just how good it feels to _let go._ His own supplication intoxicates him, allowing him a kind of freedom that he’s never found anywhere else. Only here, with John, like this.

He can hear John continuing to swear and shout and moan, a filthy litany of praise and worship for Sherlock’s dangling form, and the sound wraps him in a cocoon of reassurance. He is safe here, John is taking care of him, he need only be here in this moment, surrendering himself to the John and all the wild, wonderous things that entails. He tilts his head back to loll against John’s sturdy shoulder and wails as John commandeers his body completely.

Before he knows it, John is yanking him down even further onto his cock, tightening Sherlock’s bindings reflexively. For one brief moment he startles, the rope of his corset constricting so tightly that it forces the wind out of him, and he finds himself incapable of drawing another breath. But before the panic can set in, he feels the blossoming heat of John’s release spreading inside him, and he goes completely lax and leans into the sensation-- the gorgeous high of being completely and utterly _John’s. ___

__“Mmm, there we go, there we go, easy now…” Sherlock blinks his eyes open and is surprised to find he’s back on two feet and swaying slightly as John holds him close to his chest, pressing soft kisses to the back of his neck. All the tension is gone from the ropes, and he’s breathing in deep gulps of air like a man resurfacing from underwater. John rocks with him gently as he acclimates, the world slowly swimming back into focus, his awareness of his own body gradually drawing into sharp relief. Everything still feels a bit surreal, but he’s not concerned by that fact; John will take care of everything, so he needn’t worry._ _

__“Very nice, love, deep breaths for me, beautiful, gorgeous, so good for me, aren’t you?” John’s sturdy fingers work their way across the ropes and one by one, they slither away to the floor, leaving Sherlock raw and exposed. He shivers._ _

__“Oh, sweetheart, are you cold? Come here, love, hold onto the back of the chair for a second, yes, just like that…” John turns and walks towards the opposite side of the room, and Sherlock shakes harder-- why was John _leaving him?_ He wanted-- He needed--_ _

__Before he can even finish formulating the thought, John is back at his side, wrapping him in his dressing gown, which he’d just fetched from the cupboard. Clever John, he must have hidden it down here in preparation… Sherlock smiles softly to himself as John fusses over him, urging him to come stand closer to the fire while he ties up his dressing gown and runs his hands over Sherlock’s arms and legs, confirming that bloodflow was normal and that Sherlock isn’t in pain._ _

__Sherlock stares into the fire and basks in John’s warmth. He’s always so _careful_ with Sherlock in moments like this, so achingly gentle and kind that Sherlock can hardly believe that mere minutes ago, John had him completely at his mercy, ravaging him with all of his considerable strength, taking him so hard that his whole body aches with the effects of it. Sherlock is so _lucky,_ he thinks to himself, to have a man who can be both things all in one. Because Sherlock _needs_ both: the rough, frantic, violent domination, and the sweet, soft, considerate doting. Most people could just give him one or the other, he thinks smugly to himself. But instead he found _John,_ who gives him the world, and then some._ _

__“Sweetheart? I’d like to take you upstairs now. We’re all done here. Do you think you can handle that?”_ _

__Sherlock takes a moment to think about it. He’s still completely out of it, that much he can say for certain, but he trusts John not to ask him to do anything that would embarrass him later._ _

__“Yes, John.”_ _

__“Alright, love. Come with me.” And with that, John takes Sherlock by the arm and guides him back up the stairs to 221B._ _

__It’s a bit disorientating, and Sherlock does his best to ignore the unpleasant sensation of lube and come between his cheeks that he only really notices on the second flight of stairs. He supposes that normally he’d feel self-conscious about it, but he knows John likes it when he gets messy, so he decides he can’t be arsed to care one way or the other, and devotes himself to single-mindedly following John’s instructions instead._ _

__John is so wonderful. He takes Sherlock to the bathroom and washes him down in the shower, peppering him with praise between light kisses. He checks Sherlock for tearing before cleaning him up, then dries him off with warm, fluffy towels before tucking him into bed._ _

__Then he brings in a plate of gingerbread-- the good stuff John said he was saving for his mother-- and feeds it to Sherlock bite by bite. Sherlock licks and suckles at his fingers, the act of being fed so inexplicably satisfying, he can never really quantify it. All the while, John watches him with flushed cheeks and blown pupils and wet lips, his tongue darting out in a subconscious sympathetic motion each time Sherlock leans in to take the food from between his fingers. The act is breathtakingly intimate, and Sherlock finds it immeasurably arousing that John seems to enjoy it as much as he does._ _

__And then it’s time for sleep. John pulls him close to his chest, and Sherlock is just drifting off when John speaks._ _

__“So you liked your Christmas present?”_ _

__Sherlock chuckles, low and deep in the dark, and John gives him a firm squeeze. “Yes, John.”_ _

__“Mmm, I’m so glad.” He presses a soft kiss to Sherlock’s forehead._ _

__Suddenly, something clicks into place, and Sherlock’s eyes flicker open. “Is that why you were so horny all week?”_ _

__John barks out a laugh. “Christ, I can’t slip anything past you, can I? Yeah, I confess, doing the prep work and brainstorming all the things I was going to do to you just about drove me out of my mind. Thought the anticipation was going to kill me before I even got you down there.”_ _

__“So you compensated by rogering me half to death every night this week?”_ _

__“You didn’t seem inconvenienced at the time.”_ _

__“I wasn’t. I was just helping you get into the Christmas spirit.” He tips his head up, and John’s lips find his, and they kiss and kiss and kiss some more, until everything goes soft and dark and quiet._ _

__The Christmas Eve gala is a success. Sherlock is polite, attentive, and does not bring shame to the family name. With John by his side, he’s cordial to his parents, civil to Mycroft, more than a bit smug in front of Victor Trevor, and appropriately bland to the endless parade of stuffy society aristocrats whose mindless banter he’s forced to endure._ _

__And if it’s because beneath his clothes, his body is laced with garlands of bruises, an aubergine-hued memento of just how _good_ he can be, that with the lightest brush of his fingers John can make throb and flare and _burn,_ well… _ _

__Sherlock just says the _Christmas spirit_ got the best of him._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to all! 
> 
> A huge debt of gratitude for the lovely prompts that contributed to this installment:  
> \--To FrenchCaresse, who requested a glass dildo in the freezer  
> \--To numerous readers who requested spanking (REALLY must start writing names down as we go-- I believe spanking has been suggested by multiple people on multiple installments, and I can’t find them all!)  
> \--To Danikris23, who requested a rope corset  
> \--To Joanna, for requesting the backstory of Sherlock’s dislike for name-calling  
> In short: Please keep the comments and suggestions rolling in! Even if it takes me a while to incorporate them, I do have a running list going, and I love dipping into that bag of tricks when I’m looking for inspiration.
> 
> So remember that John-centric angst-fest I’ve been claiming I’m about to post for… oh, about 18 months now? WELL IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING. I’m taking a short break from the porn-y one-offs to polish it up, and hope to start posting chapters in early 2019. It’ll be heavier on the plot and lighter on the porn (but still with plenty of naughty bits), so if the last few installments have been a bit intense for your taste, the next one may be just the thing.
> 
> In the meantime, leave a little Christmas love in the comments<3 I adore hearing from you!

**Author's Note:**

> I assure you Chapter 2 will be much more in keeping with the Christmas theme! In the meantime, please leave questions, comments, musings-- would love to hear your thoughts on this new negotiation between them!


End file.
